John Belushi Is Dead (27 page)

“I am not like you. I will never be like you.”

His expression turned mean. “Wise up, Hilda. You know I'm right. You're nothing but a bloodsucker, feeding off everyone's misery. You think saving some old guy will bring your parents back? Make everything right again? Gee, wouldn't that be a nice little character arc. But let me tell you something. Life doesn't work that way. It doesn't tie up in a neat little Hollywood-certified bow.”

Behind him the nurse was returning, a security guard by her side. Jake followed my gaze and turned around.

“You know what?” he said. “I don't need this.”

“Sir,” the guard said, standing beside him. “I believe this nurse asked you to leave.”

“Don't worry. I'm gone. I am so out of here.”

He brushed past me and stomped down the hallway. “Jake!” I called out. He turned.

“What?”

I steeled myself. “Your writing sucks anyway.”

He took his sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on, then kept walking.

“So long, Hilda,” he said, and I watched him walk down the corridor. I wanted to chase after him, tell him we had been doing so well—couldn't we go back to before he betrayed me? But I couldn't. I thought of all the conversations Hank and I had had on the balcony and in his living room, couldn't erase from my mind the image of Jake listening from his apartment below. The tape recorder that fell from his bag. All the things he knew that I had never told him, that he'd never given me the chance to. I watched as the hospital doors closed behind him, and then I walked away.

I
POKED MY HEAD INSIDE
Hank's room and was struck by the sound of the machines that were keeping him alive, a quiet but insistent whirring, the sound of momentum. It was always good to hear sounds in a hospital room. Silence was a sign of trouble.

Hank was lying in the bed with both wrists bandaged. Someone had given him a sponge bath so he actually looked pretty good, if not a little tired. His gray hair had dried into soft tufts and his beard looked like cotton wool. As I hovered near the door he turned to look at me.

“Am I still here?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Shit.”

I walked in and pulled up a chair beside his bed.

“Of all the goddamn luck. I had an out-of-body experience. I was flying high over this bed, looking down at myself. When I tried to fly away, someone told me I wasn't allowed to go yet.”

“That was me.” I smiled.

He grinned. “I thought it was strange that an angel would call me a selfish bastard. Can you get me some water? I feel like I've swallowed a thousand razor blades.”

I poured him a glass and handed it to him. As he raised his hand he winced from the pain.

“So, cutting your wrists, huh?” I said. “It's a bit emo, isn't it?”

“Emo?”

“It's normally teenage girls who cut themselves. If you wanted to go that badly, surely you could have done it in a more manly way. You could have held up a liquor store and waited for the cops to gun you down.”

Hank swallowed the water and tried to put the empty glass on the side table; he screwed up his face as he knocked his wrist against the side of the bed.

“Hey, I'll get that,” I said, taking the glass from him. “Just lie down.”

“I don't need any help.”

“They say suicide is a cry for help. People who try to commit suicide, most of them don't really want to die.”

“I do.”

“Why, Hank? What's the story with you? Sometimes I think I have you all figured out, then you do something like this.”

“It's none of your business,” he grumbled. “Can't a man get some peace in here?”

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No, goddamnit. This ain't got nothin' to do with you!”

“But is there something more I should be doing? Are there things that you want to talk about?”

“I'm sick of talking,” he said, sitting up. “I was fine until you two came along. I just want to be left alone.”

“Well, you won't have to worry about Jake coming around anymore.”

Hank arched an eyebrow. “Whaddaya mean? Did you two have a lovers' tiff or somethin'?”

“Something like that. You were right about him, though, I guess. I shouldn't have trusted him.”

“Yeah, well, don't write him off yet. He may be an untrustworthy little bastard, but he likes you.”

“I thought you hated him?”

“I do! Goddamn little son of a bitch, always hanging around, gives me the creeps. But like I said, he likes you, and soon, all the rest of that shit won't matter.”

“I just don't get it, Hank. You've lived through so much, why kill yourself now? It's not like you're gonna be with us much longer, if you know what I mean. Wouldn't you prefer to clock out in your sleep? It's a hell of a lot nicer than bleeding out.”

He grasped my hand, squeezing my fingers together until it hurt. “I can't live with it anymore,” he said. “I can't live with what happened.”

“I understand. You lived through a horrible time—”

“No, you don't understand. I did a terrible thing, Hilda. A terrible, terrible thing.”

“Hank, don't blame yourself for what happened to Lenore,” I said, remembering his story about the girl who perished in the camp. “You were young. It wasn't your fault.”

“Not Lenore. Something else. Something unspeakable.”

Somewhere in the hospital an alarm rang and I heard the frantic
rush of footsteps. A few nurses raced past the door but Hank seemed not to notice the commotion.

“You're getting crazy eyes, Hank,” I joked. “If you're not careful they'll think you have rabies and put you down.”

He didn't smile. “My heart hurts. I need your help, Hilda.”

“Hank, if I shut off your machine, I'm going down for twenty years, and even though life feels pretty shit right now, I'd rather not spend it in jail.”

“Not now. Later. It's too risky now.”

“Hank—”

The nurse appeared in the doorway, flustered, a pile of paperwork in her hands. “Oh, you're awake,” she said. “Why didn't anyone tell me you were awake?”

“I wasn't aware it was the job of the visitors to keep the hospital informed on how the patient is doing,” I said.

She smiled grimly. “In any case, visiting hours are over.”

I bent over and whispered in Hank's ear. “What do you want me to do?”

“Wait,” he replied, breathless, his voice like a clockwork toy winding down. “It needs to be done right.”

“But I don't want to do it.”

“Miss,” the nurse said, tapping her clipboard impatiently with a pen. “I've asked you once.”

“Fine, fine, I'm going,” I said, sounding annoyed, but in reality I was grateful to her for giving me an excuse to leave.

“I'll be back, Hank,” I said.

“Don't come back here. I'm gettin' out of this shithole as soon as I can.”

I stood outside in the cold night air and looked around for
Jake. I waited to hear his voice, see him walking toward me, rushing to tell me he was wrong, he was sorry for what he had done, he needed me. But he wasn't there. Maybe he was right. Maybe I was looking for some stupid Hollywood ending, a happiness that didn't really exist. I saw a payphone on the wall and rustled in my pocket for some change. A man in a wheelchair smoked a cigarette by the hospital doors, staring up into the night sky. His face was pale, his eyes hollow pits. I picked up the phone and was about to dial when he spoke.

“You see that?” he said, pointing at the sky. I looked around.

“Who, me?”

He laughed. “Yes, you. Look at the stars.”

I looked up. The sky was a vast expanse of darkness dotted with lights. “Am I looking for something in particular?” I asked.

The man didn't say anything for a moment, then, as if speaking in a trance, he recited something to me that I was sure he had spoken before, at another time to another person, but the same thing nevertheless.

“It's not just a sky; it's heaven,” he said. “One day we will all be returned to heaven. And in heaven we will be turned into stars. And we will be brighter than anything down here.”

“You enjoying the morphine there, good buddy?” I said, but he acted like he hadn't heard. I turned away and dialed.

“Hello?” Lynette said, and for a moment I couldn't say anything. It felt as if something was caught in my throat, and as I pushed it out I realized it was a sob.

“Lynette,” I managed to say.

“Hilda? What's the matter? Where are you?”

“The hospital.”

“Hospital? Oh my God, what's wrong? Are you okay?”

I drew back a breath. “Can you come and get me, please?”

I heard the jangle of keys. “I'm on my way.”

I hung up the phone and looked back toward the man in the wheelchair, but he was gone. I looked back up at the stars.

L
YNETTE TOOK ME FOR
ice cream at Mel's Drive-in in West Hollywood. When I was younger it was my favorite place to go. A fifties-style diner featured in the movie
American Graffiti
, Mel's served traditional American food like hamburgers, hot dogs, and French fries. Best of all, Mel's was open all night, and I had many fond memories of late-night excursions for banana splits and ice-cream floats. In the early days we never had anything to eat in the house, as Lynette was used to grabbing food at work and didn't think to bring any home. She would try everything she could to make me happy, even if it meant plying me with as many sweets as I wanted. When she saw me at the hospital, looking like a zombie and rubbing tears from my face, I guess she resorted to what she knew best. And as I pulled up a counter seat and ordered a double-malt milkshake, I'll be damned if I didn't feel a hell of a lot better.

Lynette picked at some chili fries as I downed the milkshake with three quick gulps through the straw. “Mmmmm,” I said,
slamming the glass on the counter. “That's the ticket. Better than crack.”

“You want another one?”

“Hell yeah.”

Lynette ordered me another milkshake and I started to eat her fries. “Help yourself,” she muttered.

“Don't mind if I do.”

We sat and ate and watched people come and go. A waitress sailed by on roller skates. “Feels like old times,” Lynette said. “Remember when we used to come here at least three times a week?”

“That was because you had no idea what to do with me.”

Lynette laughed. “I still don't.”

“Oh, come on,” I said, stuffing her fries into my mouth. “I'm not that bad, am I?”

“Not bad at all. You're great.”

We said nothing for a moment. I shoveled more fries into my mouth.

“So what's going on, Hilda?”

I stared into the center of my thick shake glass. The milk had condensed around the side.

“I feel like everyone leaves me,” I said. “Or I end up having to leave them.”

“I haven't left you.”

“But you want to, right? I mean, I've been a real bitch.”

“Bah,” she said like it was no big deal. “We've both given each other a hard time.”

I heard her cell phone ringing in her pocket. She scooped it out and pressed the silence button.

“I'll take it later,” she said.

“It's okay, take it. It could be some innocent man sitting on death row, and for all we know you're his last phone call.”

“He can wait.”

I continued to shovel fries into my mouth, ravenous.

“We don't really talk much, do we?” Lynette said.

“I guess we don't.”

“We never did really. Your dad didn't like me ‘interfering.'”

“You were pretty hard on him.”

Lynette gave me a surprised look. “How do you know?”

“Come on, Lynette. I heard you two argue all the time.”

I swirled a French fry in ketchup, made little patterns with the salty tip. “I remember Mom. She liked wearing caftans.”

“She sure did,” Lynette said, laughing. “Your grandmother did, too. The whole family was a bunch of hippies. I guess I was always the black sheep.”

To my surprise Lynette looked dejected. I'd always pictured her as strong and stubborn, not someone who would care what anyone else thought. She took her hand away from mine, started flicking through the selections on the jukebox on the table. No one in the restaurant had put a song on for at least five minutes, and I could tell the silence was making everyone uneasy. Lynette opened her purse and took out two quarters.

“You want to choose a song?” she asked, tapping the coins on the table.

This was something else we had done when I was a kid. One song each. There was something about a jukebox that made making a selection something special. Anyone could just keep jamming coins in, making the music vomit out with little attention paid to what was being chosen. To be allowed only one song out of
all those hundreds made the whole enterprise worthwhile, gave it some gravity. After making a selection, I loved to watch the faces of the diners around me, see whether they agreed with my purchase or not. Some lady might screw her nose up in annoyance, but a biker might start tapping his foot under the table, making me feel like I'd found a kindred spirit. Out of all the people who had come to this diner, I had found someone like me. I gave one of the coins back to Lynette.

“You first.”

Lynette put the coin in the slot and I heard it rattle down to the bottom of the machine. Her beautiful manicured fingers pushed two buttons together, and the sound of Elvis singing “Hound Dog” erupted through the diner speakers.

“A bit obvious,” I said. “Everyone likes Elvis.”

“Nothing wrong with a crowd-pleaser,” she said. “Sometimes it's perfectly okay to be like everyone else.”