Charlie's Key (15 page)

“Nothing good ever came to me on the other end of a siren,” he said once.

So you can see it’s kinda sad that all these sirens and flashing lights and firefighters with rescue gear and ropes and metal baskets and their radios all turned up and squawking— all of it was coming right
to
me, right
at
me—and I don’t really remember it.

I do remember watching Nick’s head disappear, and looking out at the ocean and seeing stars up there. And some stars were moving in a little group, getting closer, and I wondered if I was dying and this was the light everybody talked about in some tunnel that you’re supposed to go through when you die. Except these were tiny lights, and those death lights are supposed to be bright. I figured it was a ship coming into St. John’s. Then I looked at the moon for a bit, and I musta fallen asleep, because when I opened my eyes again there was the moon, right in my face. I could see the man in the moon clear as day. Then a hand reached out and I thought that didn’t make any sense because the man in the moon doesn’t have arms. I heard somebody talking and a radio made a squawk and that woke me a bit, just when the man in the moon was moving my hurt leg back and forth. And I heard a yell, which came from me. And the man in the moon turned into a fireman, who was hanging off some ropes. He was talking, but I don’t really know what he said. It was windy and cold and black, then bright and cold and swayey. And there was a siren, but it didn’t come close and then go away—it just stayed the same and I was right inside it, going up and down, up and down. Then there were nurses and doctors. And my leg hurt again. And I remember another yell, from me.

I had that same feeling I did right after the accident with my dad, when I woke up and opened my eyes and I saw a place I never saw before. But waking up to someplace you’ve never seen, ever, is weird. So it was like that again, except I knew right away it was a different hospital, because there was a painting of a rainbow on the wall and clouds and a sun with sunglasses on and a big smile. And it made me feel better, seeing that, which sounds silly, I know, ’cause it’s really a thing for little kids, like three-year-olds. Most of the time, if I saw something like that painted on a wall, I’d hardly even notice, and it wouldn’t make me smile or anything. But when you wake up and don’t know where you are, except it’s in a hospital and your leg is smashed up, seeing something like a smiley sun makes you feel better.

There are doctors and nurses coming in and out all the time, and last night the big doctor came and talked to me. You can tell he’s the big doctor, because for quite a while before he shows up, nurses are busy doing a bunch of stuff getting ready for him—writing down my temperature and putting papers together on a clipboard and saying, about ten times, “Dr. Misky (or Mingy or something like that) will be here in a little bit to have a chat.” And then there’s a swirl of wind and he’s there. It’s like when the principal comes into your class because you’ve been extrabad and everybody all of a sudden sits up and pays more attention. Dr. Misky’s got about ten other doctors behind him. Then he says, with a look down at the cast on my leg, “You won’t be needing running shoes for a while.”

I think he figures I’m going cry when he says that, because right away he says, “But don’t worry—you’ll be running before you know it. It’s just a severe sprain. The cast will stabilize it.”

But that’s not why I feel like crying—it’s because all of a sudden I remember I haven’t seen my sneakers since I came in here, and how long ago was that? How long has it been since I had the key with me? And where is it now?

“Nurse,” I say, soon as the big doctor and his herd of little doctors leave. “Do you know where my sneakers are?”

“No.”

“Could you find out? If it’s not too much trouble?”

“They could be anywhere, my luv. The paramedics might’ve cut them off, or they might have left them in the rig.”

“They’re my only sneakers.”

“Tell you what. I’ll check with Property on my way out. They’ll have your jacket and other clothes there, bagged up. All right?”

“Thanks.”

“And if they’re not there, my luv, what odds? You can always get another pair just the same.”

Not exactly, I think, but I don’t say anything except “Thanks” again.

Next morning Nurse comes in and tells me my sneakers are downstairs in Property.

“Can I get them?” I say.

“What do you want an old pair of sneakers for?” says Nurse. I figure I must look like I’m gonna cry again, because right away she says, “Oh, all right—I suppose they remind you of happier days. Tell you what. On my break we’ll walk down together and get them—Doctor wants you up and around on that leg, anyways. Will that do you?”

I nod and Nurse shows up just at
10
:
00
am, carrying a pair of crutches.

“Here, Charlie—try these. We’ll get ’em set for your height.”

When I was a little kid, I thought it would be cool to have a cast and crutches. People’d line up to sign it, and they’d want to tap on it and know how it felt to have it on. Except now I got one and I’m trying to walk and all it is is a pain in the butt. And it hurts too.

“You’re doing good, Charlie,” says Nurse. “We’ll just take the elevator to the basement. Property’s right beside the pharmacy.”

A minute later we’re alone on the elevator. I think putting paintings or photographs in elevators would be a good idea, because, as soon as we get in, we both start looking around at stuff—like you do in an elevator. I think that’s why they play music in elevators—so you have something to listen to, which takes care of your ears. But there’s never anything for your eyes to do except dart around looking at the buttons and the floor and the tiles on the ceiling, and every once in a while, at the person standing across from you, who’s doing the same thing.

While I’m thinking about that, Nurse says something I don’t hear.

“Sorry?”

“How’s your leg doing?” she asks again, looking at my cast, which is the most interesting thing to look at in the elevator.

“Okay.”

Finally the doors open into the basement. Everything’s pale green down here, even me and Nurse. Our skin looks like we just got pulled out of a lake, after falling in a week before. There’s one little pool of bright light, which we walk past. It’s a little pharmacy, with some magazines and toothpaste and pill bottles.

“Here we are,” says Nurse. She looks into a little room with
Property
written over it. There’s a door into it—one of those doors split in two, so the bottom half is closed and the top half open. But the top half isn’t really open—it’s covered in Plexiglas that’s got a hole cut in the middle, with a man standing on the other side. Nurse fills out a slip of paper and slides it to him, and he goes off and comes back with a bag of stuff.

The guy behind the Plexiglas passes the bag to Nurse through a slot and looks down at me while I sign a piece of paper that says I got my stuff back. Just looks and doesn’t say a word. It’s sort of a waste of a hole—the thing that’s cut in the Plexiglas—as far as I can see.

“Well, Charlie,” says Nurse, “let’s get this gear back up to your room and stowed in the closest. I’ve got a feeling you’ll be getting out soon.”

Which means something’s up that I don’t know about. Anytime a grown-up says something like that—”I’ve got a feeling” or “I suspect” or “I think maybe this is going to happen”—it means they’ve already decided it’s going to happen. Or their boss has already decided it’s going to happen. Like when a teacher says, “I have a feeling the field trip to the park next Wednesday may be cancelled”—well, get ready to be stuck in school next Wednesday.

“What do you mean?” I say.

“Just that you’re doing better—your leg looks good. You’re just about ready to head home.”

I’m just thinking about what to say to that when Nurse’s pager goes off. She looks down at it and gives a little quick breath.

“Oh, Charlie, I’ve got to run. Can you make it back to the room yourself with those crutches? The elevator’s right there. Okay, my luv? I’ll drop your bag on your bed,” she says. Then she’s down the hallway and going through the doorway to the stairs, which gives you an idea about how fast the elevators are in here.

With Nurse gone it’s suddenly quiet—that extra kind of quiet you feel when a place that’s big and busy goes still. Like a hockey rink in the summertime. And that’s what it feels like now, knowing there’s five floors of beds and doctors and bathrooms and oxygen tanks and stuff sitting right above my head, but down here it’s dark and still and quiet. Then there’s a guy coming outta the pharmacy just in front of me.

“Charlie,” he says. “Thought I might see you when I was in here.”

It’s Nick, standing there with a pill bottle in his hand.

“Painkillers,” he says. “Oxy-something they calls it— for the ankle sprain I got traipsing around Signal Hill the other day. Dangerous spot up there, if you’re not careful.”

He looks behind him, along the hallway, where there’s nobody.

“But I guess you’d know all about that, ’cause it looks like you got hurt.”

He nods at my cast.

“I fell.”

“Fell, did ya?” says Nick, his voice going up high, making a point that he sounds surprised. “Because I didn’t know nothing about that, Charlie. I heard there was some kid hurt up there the other night—that the cops got a…whaddaya call it…an anonymous tip about somebody going over the cliff. But I don’t know no details.”

He gives me a hard look. “You understand?”

He takes a step toward me, so I back up till I’m right against the wall.

“Now, Charlie,” he says, leaning in to me. “Have the cops asked you anything about that? Because no doubt they’re wondering how ya come to be up there.”

I shake my head.

“Well, they will. And it’d be best if ya didn’t really remember too much—ya wouldn’t want to get yer man Frankie in trouble, or that pretty thing. Clare, I thinks her name is.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Course not,” says Nick. “Because that Clare’s such a pretty thing—and such a sad story too. She’s been hooked on these”—he holds up the pill bottle and gives it a shake—“for a couple of years, off and on. Her parents are frantic, putting her into rehab—it almost makes me want to cry, the more she tells me about it.”

“She didn’t tell me about that stuff,” I say.

“Well,” says Nick, “she’s taken a bit of a liking to me, for some reason”—he drops the pill bottle into his shirt pocket— “telling me all about her life and such. Maybe she’s a kindred spirit, do ya think? But she’s a fragile thing, Charlie—twice tried to kill herself. Can you imagine? I don’t really think anyone’d be too surprised if she managed to do it one of these days, which would be a sin. And ya wouldn’t want anything like that on yer head, would ya, Charlie?”

“On my head?”

“Yes, b’y. If ya were to be talkin’ to the cops ’bout what happened at the funeral home, and about how you was down to Clare’s when she were buyin’ drugs, and how you runned away out the back—all that. If you was to tell them about all that, sure they’d be down to her place, sirens screamin’ and lights flashin’, all the neighbors out on the street, her hauled off in handcuffs, shoved back into that rehab, gettin’ it all wrote up in the paper an’ on the
TV
. It’d be enough to drive anyone over the edge, Charlie. And she’s right on the edge, b’y. That’s my feelin’, anyways, from talkin’ to her these last few days, since you been shut up in here after yer fall. It was a fall, was it, Charlie? I only knows what I heard on the news. Right?”

I nod.

He looks across the hallway as a couple of people go into the pharmacy.

“C’mon,” he says. “I’ll go with ya back to yer room—make sure ya makes it okay.”

We step into the elevator, which is sitting there, door open. It closes slow, and Nick turns to look at me.

“Gives us time for a bit of a chat, what, Charlie?”

I’d really like a picture to look at now, I think, pressing
Four
. Cranberries’d be nice.

“There is something I do wants to talk to ya about, Charlie, just between me and thee.”

We pass One.

“I been thinkin’ about what ya said, back the other night. About how ya didn’t have the key on ya. Remember that—how ya said you could get it?”

We pass Two.

“An’ that got me wonderin’ ’bout where that key could be to, Charlie. ’Cause if it weren’t on ya, it would have to be with yer stuff, right? Except it weren’t. Which I know ’cause I had a little look through yer pack, back to Clare’s. An’ it weren’t there.”

We’re at Four when Nick moves to the panel and shoves his claw into the Door Closed button.

“Which I figure means ya had it on ya, back at the cliff.”

I don’t say anything.

“And I thinks to meself, if that was me, where would I put that key?”

He gives a chuckle. “Now, me havin’ spent a good few years inside, I knows of a place or two to stow something that you don’t know anything about. So ruling out those spots, I think, where would I put that?”

There’s a bang on the elevator door, then a voice, dull through the steel. “You all right in there?”