Blood Sports (23 page)

1. Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation? Do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men?

At the granite footsteps of the Carnegie Centre, a crowd of rough-looking dealers usually milled around, offering drugs to passersby. Today the dealers and sex-trade workers were scattered west along Hastings, sheltering under the awnings of convenience stores and pizza shacks. Tom walked past a police car parked on the wide sidewalk on the north side of the Carnegie. The two officers in the car watched the hammering rain as morosely as anyone else.

Inside, the Carnegie was warm and damp, had a tired smell, old sweat and pee. To the right of the entrance was a spiralling marble staircase, a reminder of better days when the Carnegie had been a posh library. To the left, the lobby’s tables were filled with people playing checkers or chess, reading or just staring out the window waiting for the rain to stop. Straight ahead was the information desk where Paulina stood, dressed in a loose black sweater and black jeans, speaking to a guy with a garbage-bag rain
jacket. She leaned against the counter, pointed to a piece of paper that they both studied.

Tom stepped into the alcove and pretended to be in line for the pay phone under the stairs. The last time he’d seen Paulina was almost a year ago, moments before she was dragged off the Neurology ward by security guards at Saint Paul’s. The new Paulina was pale and primly free of makeup, her hair in a severe bun like a cartoon librarian. Tom had changed, too. But not in ways he wanted to share with the new Paulina.

“I don’t understand you,” was his mother’s new mantra, repeated as she avoided his eyes. “I don’t know who you are.”

Paulie spun herself tightly into the starchy hospital blanket and then fought her way free, shivering, cramming her hands under Tom’s back. She flailed, collapsing face first in the mattress, one arm over his waist. She was light and bony, cold and sticky; her breath was worried, quick; she smelled funky, low-tide beach-y. He’d given her his Valium so she could sleep. The nurse who gave him his pills watched him closely, and he knew she suspected but was too tired to call them on it.

Early, in the dull grey light, Paulie went still. She woke suddenly. She pushed herself up onto her elbows, watching him watch her. She looked down at herself. She tasted her mouth, smacking. “What time is it?”

“No clue,” he said.

She pulled a blanket over her shoulders as she settled facing him, her breath warm on his face. “This is weird.”

“What?”

“Me being here. Don’t you think it’s weird?”

“My weird-o-meter is broken,” Tom said. “I can’t tell what’s weird and what’s not weird any more. I am weirdlexic.”

Paulie frowned. “Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Make everything into a joke.” Tom laughed.

She punched his arm. “I’m serious.”

“Ow.” Obviously, Paulie was not a morning person.

“I should leave. The nurses are giving me looks.”

“I’m sick of pills.”

“I think they know,” Paulie said.

She raked her hair back, pulled the black elastic off her wrist, and put her hair back in a low ponytail. Paulie shrugged the blanket off her shoulder and spread it over him. She laced her fingers behind her neck. She stared at the ceiling, her eyes moving back and forth as if she were watching a movie only she could see.

Tom shared a four-bed hospital room and a toilet with three other patients. The wing shared a shower and bath at the end of the hall. The tub had a thick ring of greenish-beige scum. Tom opted for a shower. He had a hard time taking the hospital gown off. He’d ended up sleeping in an awkward position, and his left shoulder didn’t want to move.

He scrubbed himself down with the anti-bacterial soap from the sink. He didn’t have a towel, didn’t know where the towels were, and couldn’t be bothered to ask. He used paper towels, dabbing the yellowing shoe-shaped bruises on his torso. The egg on the left side of his head was quiet now unless Tom touched it. The round scabs on his shoulders were starting to peel away.

One month and a bit. Zip. Gone. As if aliens had abducted him and he was missing time. What he did remember he didn’t trust because it felt unreal, like a
TV
show he’d watched while he was stoned, losing chunks of the plot to snack runs during the commercial breaks.

Tom jumped as someone knocked on the washroom door.

“You still alive in there?” Paulie said.

“Yeah,” Tom said, wondering how long he’d been washing up. It didn’t feel like that long, but he couldn’t be sure.

Doctors and nurses came and went; specialists and technicians popped in and out; patients left and were replaced. Everyone spun in a blur of coming and going except Paulie, who was never more than five feet from him. Not counting the bathroom trips when she’d return wired and bright-eyed, Paulie was always within earshot and if he wasn’t sure he was tracking what someone was telling him, he’d call for her and she’d straighten things out.

They waited in the hospital room for a nurse to wheel in another round of blood tests. Paulie sat in the visitor’s chair she’d dragged in from the hallway. It did feel weird having Paulie around. But he was afraid if he admitted it, she would leave. She hunched into herself, wrapped her arms tight, and hugged herself. It wouldn’t take much to make her leave. He should. If she could give him up once, she could do it again. Judging from the shakes and cutback on trips to the bathroom, she was probably running low. It looked like she was hurting, a lot, and she was still here. She was going to be disappointed if she was expecting another reward from Jer. If Willy could hunt him down, Jer would have had no problem finding Tom if he’d wanted to. But all that was over. She had to know that. She wasn’t an idiot.

So here they were and, for whatever her reasons, Paulie had bothered to drag him to the hospital and had stuck around while he got his shit together. Paulie didn’t like fuss and he appreciated that. He wanted to know his mom was safe, was being taken care of, but the only people he could call to find out where his mother was were the people he didn’t want to go into detail with: Jeremy’s mother, Faith. Aunt Rhoda. Uncle Jeremiah.

When life gets you down for the count, it’s not a sin to rest for a while, his mom always said when he was sick and restless. As long you pick yourself up before the ref calls the match, you’ll be okay.

Paulie rolled the table tray over and sat on the side of the bed. She lifted the plastic cover, and they surveyed the selection. Lunch was beef broth and saltine crackers, mashed potatoes with a pat of butter, some kind of brown meat and green beans. Dessert was Jell-O, red today. Paulie claimed the tea first, drinking half before she handed it back. He sugared it up and she made a face.

“You’re ruining good tea,” she said.

“You want the broth?” Tom said.

“Sure.”

He ate the potatoes. The menu said the meat was Salisbury steak, but it looked like meatloaf. He pushed it to Paulie’s side of the tray, and she split it and pushed half back. He cut it into chunks to make eyes and a nose in the gravy, adding a set of green-bean lips. Paulie scowled, resolutely chomping on a piece.

“I’m mel-ting,” Tom said, moving the lips. “What a world! What a world.”

“Why don’t you hate me?” Paulie said.

“What?” he said.

“Open your eyes, Tom,” she said. “People keep looking at me. They’re scared. They’re disgusted. They can’t get away fast enough.”

He looked up and caught two nurses in the hallway watching them. “So?”

She sighed. “Tom …”

“If you’re the scariest person they’ve seen,” Tom said, “they must live in Care Bear land, man.”

The nurses pretended to be examining a chart, but kept looking up from behind their station. Paulie inspected her fingernails, her expression carefully composed. “I did some horrible things. To you. I … I wish sorry was good enough …”

“It’s history,” Tom said. “I’m sorry you got dragged in, but I’m not sorry you’re here.”

The sides of her lips pulled down further and further until she turned her head toward the window, gulping. He pushed the tray out of the way and pulled her in for a hug. He expected her to slug his shoulder but she slumped back against him, turned her head into the crook of his neck, and pulled her lips back over tightly clenched teeth, her body heaving like she was throwing up.

“Maybe it’s just my pits,” Paulie said, pushing herself up and wiping her nose on the back of her hand. “I should hit the showers.”

“Want to borrow a shirt?” Tom said. He had a selection of T-shirts from lost and found.

She shook her head.

“I’m going to watch some boob tube,” Tom said.

“Meet you there,” Paulie said.

Tom settled into the
TV
room. A puffy-faced woman with a big white bandage around her head and over one ear was watching
Oprah
. He didn’t care. He needed background noise to shut his brain up.

A tall, brown-haired orderly with a beer gut wandered in and sat in the chair beside Tom’s even though there were lots of chairs empty. Tom considered moving, but the orderly didn’t look like he wanted to chat.