Fat kid rules the world (20 page)

“You okay?” I ask.

He rolls his eyes as if I’m a moron. Snorts. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be? I don’t care what happens to Curt. He’s
your
friend….”

He stabs at his sandwich with the mustard knife, and I don’t
say anything at first, but then I nod. “That’s true,” I say, “but Curt really likes you. He said you should be our roadie when Rage/Tectonic gets famous. Thinks you’ve got potential.”

Dayle stops stabbing the sandwich, but looks suspicious.

“He said that?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Curt acts like he doesn’t notice people, but he liked you from the beginning. He invited you to the gig, didn’t he?”

Dayle pauses.

“Well …”

“Dayle,” I say, as if it’s an afterthought, “there are people who like you even when you’re not winning sports trophies. You know that, don’t you? Me, Curt, Dad … Mom loved you, too. Maybe you don’t remember, but she was crazy about you from the moment you were born. If she were here she’d tell you that.” It’s probably the most important thing I’ve ever said to my brother. I keep going as if it’s no big deal, but I know it’s a big deal. It would be to me. “Trust me,” I say. “Curt likes you.”

Dayle bites his lip. “Well, I always thought Curt was cool, it’s just that I didn’t think you guys wanted me around….”

I don’t make him finish.

“I always want you around. You’re my brother.”

In our entire lives I’ve never said this to him. I’ve spent years waiting for those exact words and it never once occurred to me to give them away.

I WAKE UP IN THE MORNING
and remember something’s wrong. I can’t remember what it is right away, then it comes back to me. Curt’s in the hospital. Dad’s with him. Dayle’s scared. I’m … For once I do not define myself. I get out of bed, shower, and dress in a pair of tan pants and a T-shirt that reads
ALBUQUERQUE
. I wake up Dayle.

“I’m going to the hospital,” I tell him.

He’s mostly asleep, so I accept the half nod I get in response, then write a note and leave it on the counter. I call a cab and wait for it outside.

When it arrives, I slide in and tell the driver my destination. The cab smells like cigarette smoke even though the sticker on the back panel reads
NO SMOKING
. I roll down the window and try to breathe only fresh air. I want to suck it in before I reach the hospital. I’m starting all over again and I want a fresh start. This time around I don’t have room for pollution. I lean forward and breathe, watching the city move past my open window. Today, I fit. I’m just one more anonymous person in a yellow cab.

I take a deep breath.
This is where it begins
, I think.

Fat Kid Breathing in a Cab
.

CURT’S BEEN MOVED
to a real room, just him and an old guy wheezing away in the other bed. I find Dad with the curtain drawn, sitting beside Curt. He looks up when I arrive, and I think we
both realize this scene is familiar. Dad is composed even though I know he stayed up all night. Guard duty. Dad’s good at that. I’d smile if he didn’t look so grim.

“How’s Curt?” I ask, nodding at the pile of blankets in the bed. I wouldn’t know it was Curt if Dad weren’t sitting there. Curt’s lost under the paper-thin hospital blankets. The top of his head barely emerges and his hair is matted back from sweat or grime. Maybe both. Dad sighs.

“He’ll be okay,” he says. “Tonight was tricky, but he’s sleeping now. He’s got pneumonia and took too much medication for it. He’s malnourished and a bit bruised.” He pauses, then looks at me.

“Do you know how he got those bruises?” he asks. I shake my head. I don’t, and the truth is, he could’ve gotten them anywhere. Fight, accident, stepfather, thrashing, throwing himself into a drum set … I don’t really know what Curt does to survive. I don’t know how he lives or where he goes, if he has any friends aside from me and the Puppets. I shake my head again, and Dad nods as if he understands.

“I talked to his mom,” he offers. He glances at Curt to make sure he’s not awake. I start to feel hopeful because Curt always talks about his mom as if she’s the decent one. Maybe when she hears he’s in the hospital she’ll kick the asshole out and let Curt back in.

“Yeah?” I say. “When’s she coming?”

Dad’s silent for a long time. His face is as still and solemn as granite. “She’s not,” he says at last.

I’m confused, thinking he must mean she’s not coming
right away
. I fill in the words he forgot to say. Then it hits me.

“She’s not coming?” I repeat. I picture the woman I saw entering the apartment building—the one with the tired eyes and splattered uniform. “What do you mean she’s not coming? Did you speak to her? Not the ass—not his stepfather, but
her
? Did you tell her he’s in the freaking hospital?”

Dad looks at me and it’s one of the many occasions when I wish I knew what he was thinking. He looks the way he looked right after my mother died, when there was something he wanted to say, but couldn’t say it. He coughs.

“Yes, I told her,” he says. He studies Curt’s monitors as if he’s making sure nothing’s changed. “I spoke to her directly and she’s not coming.”

I sit down in the chair opposite my father. I plunk down all three hundred pounds of me as if I’m made of cement. The chair groans, but I don’t think about it. I just stare ahead as if someone died. It shouldn’t be such a big deal, I tell myself. I bet Curt would pretend it wasn’t a big deal. But for some reason that doesn’t make me feel better. It is a big deal.

“How can a mother refuse to visit her kid in the hospital? What if he died?! I bet she’d be sorry then….”

I don’t mean to, but my voice rises and I pound my fist into the bed. Curt doesn’t move, but his heart monitor beeps faster. Dad glances at it, then reaches over and puts his large leathery fist on top of mine. I draw in a quick breath and Dad lets go of my hand. He starts talking the way he used to talk after the funeral. Slow, steady, calm.

“Sometimes,” he says, “people give up on each other. They don’t mean to, but things happen….”

There’s a long silence.

“In the military,” Dad starts again, “we teach our boys to go the distance. Just like I tried to teach you and Dayle. A soldier never gives up until they’ve reached their objective. Perseverance.” Dad pauses. “But in wartime,” he says, “it’s easy to remember because there’s a war to be fought and you have to fight it. You give it one hundred percent because your life depends on it. In civilian life it’s not that easy and sometimes people give up too soon. It doesn’t mean they stop loving each other, but maybe they stop trying so hard and
let things slide when they ought to hang on tight. Maybe they don’t tunnel through the mud because they think they don’t have to, or they get tired….”

My father is tunneling through the mud. I close my eyes.

“Dad,” I say, “she shouldn’t have given up on him. Curt’s a great guitarist. He’s funny and he tries really hard to make people like him, and he taught me about other people and eating, and about seeing stuff that’s hidden….” I pause and think very carefully about what I’m about to say.

“You never gave up on us like that,” I say. “You didn’t give up on Mom, and you’ve never given up on me. You haven’t given up on Curt and he’s not even your kid. It’s not your fault I got fat. I know that, Dad.”

For the first time I name what’s unspoken between us, and Dad has to fight hard to keep his stoic expression. He looks away, but at the same time reaches out and takes my hand, this time with no pretense.

We sit there for a long time. The shades in the room are drawn and it’s dim, shadowed. Noises from the hallway drift inside, but Dad and I are silent together. When he finally stands up, I wish he wouldn’t go.

“I’ll be back this evening,” Dad says. “The nurses will be around in the afternoon, and Curt will probably wake up for a while. He’ll be glad to see you.”

Dad hands me some money.

“Get yourself some lunch and call me if anything changes.” He pauses at the door.

“And Troy?” he says. I turn around.

“Yeah, Dad?”

“Proud.”

CURT WAKES UP A LITTLE
after lunchtime. He’s groggy and asks for my dad. When I tell him Dad went home he asks for chocolate pudding. He’s barely awake and he can’t sit up; he’s on a diet of ice chips, but he’s convinced he could eat chocolate pudding if someone just gave it to him.

“Damn,” he whispers when I tell him they’re all out. “What are the chances?”

He tries to fall back asleep, but shifts uncomfortably. His blankets twist into spirals and his eyes stay half shut. He moans only when the nurse comes in … says his chest hurts, his back hurts, everything hurts…. She falls for it every time. She gives him more pain medication, and he drifts in and out, talking when I least expect it.

“Don’t forget about the gig,” he says after waking up in a panic. Once he says, “Ten dollars. That’s just ten dollars. A bargain for what you’re getting.”

Listening to him makes me wonder if this will end up as one of his songs. If it does I bet it will be a song about rage, bedpans, and a thousand distorted nurse faces. I bet it will be about feeling tired and sick and not getting chocolate pudding when it’s the one thing in the world you truly want.

BY TUESDAY AFTERNOON
Curt’s doing better. I visit after school and find him sitting up in bed watching
Love Boat
reruns. There’s a pile of used tissues making a pyramid on the floor beside
him, and an empty food tray lies abandoned nearby. An alarm is going off down the hall and the room smells like piss. The guy in the next bed rasps every time he breathes. It’s putrid.

Curt grins, oblivious, and points to the television.

“I lub de
Love Boadt
,” he says. “Whad a show. Gopher’s de besdt.” He blows his nose loudly “I’ve been wadtching the besdt shows all day.
Love Boadt, Gilligan’s Island, Three’s Company
.” He’s blissfully happy. And nasal.

I sit down in the blue plastic chair and try to remember what he looked like on stage, but can’t conjure that image in relation to this person in the hospital gown. Not because he’s sick, but because he’s so happy.

“How you doing?” I ask.

Curt nods appreciatively “T,” he says, “this is the besdt place I’ve ever been.” He rubs his eyes. “Look …” He presses a button and after a minute a nurse comes in.

“Hi,” he says. She shakes her head.

“Curt, what have we told you about the buzzer?”

“You wanna meedt my friend T?” he asks.

The nurse smiles. She’s petite with cherry-red hair and perfect, round breasts.

“Hi, T,” she says, then gives Curt a mock glare. “Rest,” she orders.

Curt smiles, satisfied. He leans back and puts his hands behind his head like one of those rich men in the movies. Nods at me knowingly.

“They’re here all the time, you know,” he tells me. “All you’ve got to do is push the button.”

TWO DAYS LATER
Curt’s trying to sleep, sweating like he’s in a sauna. The television’s off, but he still looks happy. He grins when he sees me and motions toward the chair beside his bed. I flop down next to him.

“Know what I like about this place?” he asks without preamble. I shake my head, and Curt’s eyes dart around the room.

“There are so many people around,” he says. “There’s this guy”—he jerks his head at the guy in the next bed—“and the nurses and doctors. Ollie came to visit me and he said Piper’s coming tomorrow. Maybe Mike … and your dad’s here a lot. Oh, wait …” He gets excited and tries to sit up, but doesn’t. “I’ve got great news. We’ve got another gig. This Saturday.”

He waits for my reaction, but I hesitate.

“You think you’ll be out of here by Saturday?” I ask. Curt doesn’t miss a beat.

“Are you fucking insane? Of course I won’t be out of here by Saturday. I have
pneumonia
.” He drags the word out like he’s talking to a kid. “But,” he says, “we can’t let a little thing like me being hospitalized stand in the way of our second big debut. We’re gonna kick ass. Oh,” he adds, “and I’ve invited all the nurses.”

“Curt,” I say, “I think maybe we should wait until you’re better. I mean, it won’t be that long before you’re out and then we’ll set up a show….”

Curt scoffs.

“It will be a
long time
,” he says, “because I’m
sick
and they have to let me stay until I get better.” He tries to punch me in the arm but can’t reach. “Don’t worry,” he says. “You’ve got all the nervous stuff behind you now. Or maybe you could do it again and it could be your trademark.” He thinks about this idea and I can tell he’s liking
it. I would object, but the nurse comes in to take his temperature.

The nurse is a young guy, probably in his twenties, and he’s wearing green scrubs like the people on television. He reads the thermometer, throws away the plastic covering, and frowns.

“I don’t get it,” he mutters. “We’ve already put you on new meds …” Curt nods gravely as the nurse hands him a small paper cup with his pain pills in it. Curt swallows them, or at least I think he does. As soon as the nurse leaves he rolls the pills out from under his tongue and spits them out. He reaches over to the houseplant on his bed stand and casually buries them beneath the dirt. Then he unhooks his IV and squeezes out some of his antibiotic. He rehooks the IV, all the while continuing our discussion as if nothing unusual is happening.

“So, Saturday night I’ll sneak out, which won’t be a big deal because I’ve been figuring out their shifts and so long as Mr. Death Rattle over there doesn’t decide to kick off, I can make it….”

I stare with my mouth open. “What are you doing?!” I finally demand, wondering if I really saw him do what I think I saw him do. My cheeks puff and I’m sure I look like someone just got murdered. Curt stops. He gives me an innocent look, which turns into a glare when I don’t respond appropriately.

“Relax,” he says, nodding at the television. “Don’t freak out. There’s plenty left. Plenty.”

“And the pills?”

He scratches his head. “Those are for
later
, when I can’t get them all the time. This place is loaded. I’m just saving a few of my own and borrowing some, uh …
eh-hem
.”