Memorizing You (33 page)

He jumped up and to my side in a single leap. Superman, I thought.

“Hey, bud! Welcome back!” His smile was comically child-like. “Good to see you again. How ya feeling? Well, don’t answer that. I know how ya must be feeling.”$RImy

I strained to talk. “How long?”

He looked confused first. Then got it. “How long? Over a week. Long time, buddy.”

I still hadn’t put the pieces back together. My mind was too cloudy. “What happened?”

That brought a dark expression. A harried body language. “Stay right there. I’ll get your mom. She’s getting coffee. Don’t go away…I mean back to sleep. I’ll be right back with her.”

Once he fled the room, I tried to stay awake. The movements on the television screen hypnotized me back to the peace of the thoughtless.

There were no dreams in this week-long hibernation. No sketches of memory wormed their way into my subconscious to remind me of why I was there. I was never awake long enough for my mind to engage in a backward trek.

A young man’s friendly face greeted me in my next lucid moment. He had a light cover of acne, short black hair, and stocky build. Apparently very strong. He was carefully holding up one side of me and pulling the sheets away from under me. Changing my bed sheets.

“Hey there!” he said when he saw my eyes were open. “I guess you don’t know me, though we’ve been friends here for a while. I’m Jerry. I’m the night nurse for the floor here.”

He had the bed changed in a matter of moments. It was impressive considering I couldn’t move anything to assist him.

“You’re going to be a little more awake from now on. The doctor turned back your IV drip. So, I’m going to warn you upfront you’re going to be a little more miserable.”

I groaned. “Great.”

“Well, look at this way. You’re very, very lucky. If you hadn’t been such a big boy in such great shape, you’d probably not be here at all. Those muscles of yours absorbed the fall like military armor. You had a pretty nasty concussion, and well…you can see the rest.”

“How bad?” I asked.

“Well, your arm is broken in two places. The last two fingers of your right hand were pushed back pretty far, so you may not have the grip you were used to. But you can pretend she’s a strange girl, if you know what I mean?” He chuckled as he pulled the sheet back over me, pushed the table with the water pitcher and glass back in front of me. “Your leg has a pretty good fracture, and your ankle was broken. I’m not being too rough on you telling you this way, am I? I like being truthful because I’m going to be helping you with your physical therapy and I want you to have a good grasp on what you’re going to have to do.”

The horror of what happened was finally coming back to me. I relived every horrible moment in vivid slow motion. My mind flashed back on the pallid blue face of Ryan with blood trailing down his face from his scalp.

“How’s my friend who came in with me?” I gave him Ryan’s full name.

His face was open and honest when he informed me that he hadn’t known I’d come in with someone else. He assured me he’d check on it for me. That made me feel somewhat better, although my concern was deeper for Ryan than myself. I knew his injuries had been far more extensive.

Jerry slipped a hospital menu in front of me and asked me to check off what I wanted to eat. When I had trouble doing this with my left hand, he did it for me. I could see why he had his job. He was infinitely patient.

“If you’re hungry now, I’ll run down and get you something from the cafeteria. You’ve been living off IVs for the past week, so I’m thinking you might be a little famished? We’ll have to start you out light since you haven’t had anything in there for a while. How ‘bout some Jell-O, pudding, ice cream?”

I agreed. I was hungry.

I’d just eaten when Mom came in. I could tell by the way she was dressed she’d just come from work. She was overjoyed to see me awake. Kissed every inch of my face. AskZsoas the ed me how I felt. She explained to me how I’d called them after the incident. How they found the two of us in the empty house with the door wide open, snow blowing in on us. The ambulance had arrived with the police. The police had ridden with me in the ambulance, asking questions. Somehow I told them what had happened. I remembered none of it.

Ryan’s dad had been arrested at his office shortly thereafter. He was still in jail, bond denied. The police had been waiting until I was coherent and alert enough to take my deposition.

I got all the information a person could want about what had occurred while I was indisposed, except how Ryan was doing. The answer that came back from everyone was that he was in ICU and only family was allowed in. Only family could get any information. It was a hospital rule.

One by one, my friends filed in to see me during the day. I felt like such a spectacle in my helpless state. Everyone wanted to talk about everything else and make like that was a normal conversation in spite of the knowledge of the circumstances. Two things had obviously been designated off-limits topics. What happened. And Ryan. It made every visit feel strained. So I got to hear about everyone’s Christmas, and every gift they got before the next person was ushered in to do the same.

It was New Year’s Eve, just before visiting hours were over that Dad led in the detective and his assistant from the police department. I answered their questions over a dinner of roast beef in brown paste, mashed potatoes, and peas and carrots. It had been served to me an hour before, but I was learning to eat with my left hand, and it took considerably longer to get the food to my mouth.

I told them the whole story as it had happened. The detective frowned when I was finished. He didn’t seem to like some of what I’d said.

“Is it possible we could leave out the…um…boyfriend stuff?” he asked, looking a little uncomfortable even as he said it. “It might read a little better for the legal proceedings.”

I thought that was incomprehensible. “It’s why it happened, detective. It’s the reason it happened. Without it, you’ve got no explanation. That’s kind of a hard thing to leave out. The motive.”

The consternation refused to leave his face. “I understand.”$ndI my

“It’s the truth,” I explained. “I’m not ashamed of it. I can deal with it.”

He thanked me, slipped back into his winter coat, wished me a “Happy New Year,” and left.

Mom and Dad had waited past the permissible visiting hour times to come in and do the same. Then, they were gone, and I was left to the silence of my room and a television letting me know that I would be spending the beginning of the year of our Lord, Nineteen-Seventy-One…tied to a bed and crippled. Not knowing how the person I loved was doing.

So there I was, sitting in my room on the eve of a New Year that was half an hour away, trying not to worry…and worrying.

I don’t know how long Jerry had been standing in the doorway, but I was suddenly aware of his shadow.

“Somehow, I knew you’d be awake,” he said, sauntering into the room.

I could see he was holding the paper cup that would have my medicine. He brought it to me and poured me a glass of water from the pitcher.

“On the bright side, at least I don’t have to wake you up to give you your sleeping pills.”

I took the pills.

“How come you’re working on New Year’s?” I wondered.

“I volunteered. I’m not much for getting drunk just because we all got a little older.”

I couldn’t hold back any longer. I was too desperate. “Jerry, is there any way you can find out about my friend in the Intensive Care Unit? I know the hospital rules and stuff. But I’m going nuts. I am literally laying here like a prisoner in jail and worrying my ass off ‘cause no one will tell me anything.” to the panties.

“I’m sorry. It’s hospital policy. We can’t do that. If you were family…”

“I’m his boyfriend, dammit!” I blurted it out in total frustration.

By his reaction I could see that was not something he had expected to hear. He was tongue-tied. He looked away, then back to me.

“Wow, I would have never guessed.” He slapped his face. “That’s not what I meant. It’s just I wouldn’t have looked at you and thought…” He slapped himself again. “Shit! I’m just digging that hole deeper, ain’t I?”

“Pretty much.” I feigned a smile.

“Sorry,” he said, pacing around to the other side of my table. “How long? I mean, have you been…”

“Boyfriends?” I finished it to his relief. “Over two years.”

“Wow.” He sounded impressed. “That’s longer than my mom was married to my dad and I still have to call him family. That doesn’t seem right, does it?”

I gave him the abbreviated version of how the two of us had come to be in the hospital. He was visibly disturbed by the tale.

“I don’t even know how to tell you what this is like. It’s like everything is fine…and in one flash…in one moment…hell opens up and pulls you in. And you wake up in a world you don’t know, that you can’t move around in, that you can’t get answers, and all you can do is just lay here and hope that things aren’t worse than what people are afraid to tell you. There’s not enough drugs on the planet to make this amount of anxiety go away.” I was pouring out everything. “I don’t know how to deal with something like this. I’m afraid I’ll never get to see him again, and no one cares because it’s against the rules.”

I could see the engine driving his thoughts. The lines in his young face drew into a firm determination.$RImy

“You’re right. It’s a stupid rule to keep someone’s partner from being able to see them. People should be able to see the one’s they love when they’re sick. I don’t know who would come up with a nonsensical rule like that.”

It took some doing, but he got me into a wheelchair. It was not without a great deal of pain. I was a hard and heavy thing to move. But we managed it. He wheeled me to the front desk where an older nurse with blue hair was reading a movie magazine. Oliver Reed and Dustin Hoffman were on the cover.

“Georgia, what do you say to us doing a good deed to start the New Year?” Jerry said to the woman.

She looked at him for a moment, then me. Then back to him. “It’ll have to be in the closet. It’s too open out here at the desk.”

He actually blushed. “The teenage boy in ICU. Head trauma, plus. Can you clear it with Jessie at the desk? I’m going to take this young man up to see him.”

“Is he family?”

“It’s his boyfriend,” he announced it without warning.

She looked at me, her eyes turning sad. “Oh my. I’m so sorry. Go on. I’ll call ahead.” She waved us toward the elevator.

“Thank you,” I said as he sprinted me as fast as he could down the corridor.

“My prayers are with you,” she called after us.

It felt good to be somewhere else other than my room. To see different scenery.

“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this,” I told him as the elevator pushed us up to the top level. The Intensive Care Unit. is killing me.”

In spite of the drugs pumping through me, I was excited.

The ICU was through electronic double doors that squished open in front of us with a push of the red button on the side wall. The young woman inside, Jessie, rose from the desk to guide us past the cubicles of each of the units. Ryan’s was near the rear, in the center. The glass doors were closed, the curtains pulled.

Jessie took us in. It was dark. But there were the noises of a heart monitor and a ventilator.

She turned on the light above his bed. I wasn’t prepared for the sight of him.

“Oh!” escaped my lips before I realized the sound had come from me.

He was not recognizable beneath the bandage that covered the entire top of his head. He had tubes going into his nose, and another large one covering his mouth. Every inch of him was strapped to the bed to hold him place. Plastic tubing ran in and out of him everywhere. His eyes were closed, head bent forward. His arms were covered with bruises that were turning yellow and brown. His fingers were splayed open. He was a lifeless color of pale.

Jerry wheeled me to his side. I reached for his hand with my only good one. His fingers were cold. They didn’t respond to my touch.

“He’s cold,” I said, looking to the nurse for an explanation. “What did they do to him?”

“He’s had quite a bit of surgery.” He pointed to his own head. “To relieve pressure. His brain had swelled. He’s in a drug-induced coma to give him time to heal, let the medicines work.”

“But he’s going to be okay?” I was frantic for reassurance.

“He’s had the best doctor’s you can find, Dave. He’s young, and he’s strong as a bull. He’s got everything going for him.”

I squeezed the fZsoas the ingers, hoping he’d squeeze back, give me any indication that he knew I was there. There was nothing. Just the sound of the machines that fed him air, tracked his heart. I looked at both of them like they’d have an answer I needed written on them. I searched his face again. Nothing moved. Not even his eyes. It looked like a mask. Like he wasn’t there at all.

I put my hand over his heart. The beat was so light I could barely feel it. I realized that frail beat was the only assurance I had that he was still here.

“There isn’t anything more anyone can do for him?” I hadn’t expected my anxiety to be heightened by seeing him. I was more lost than I’d been not knowing.

It was not an easy feeling to confront the possibility of death, of loss. Everything in me wanted to deny what was before my eyes. That something, in a matter of seconds, had taken us from one realm into another. Panic flew wild through me. It altered my blood, seared my mind. Blinded me with thoughts I didn’t want inside me. Suddenly, I couldn’t catch my breath. My heart galloped like it was trying to rip me apart. Words disappeared in my drowning throat.

Jerry grabbed my hand. “Calm down. Don’t get yourself worked up. You both made it this far, and you can’t get any luckier than that, Dave.”

I looked into his calm eyes. I wanted to believe him. My face was wet from my spilling eyes.

“There’s nothing I can do to help him,” I explained.

“We can pray,” a voice came from the door.

It was Ryan’s mom. She was in an overcoat that sparkled with melting flakes. I could see the rosary in her hand.