by Les Edgerton
He also felt an excruciating stab of guilt. Maybe if he’d been there when he was supposed to... Although, from most of the signs, this had gone down many hours before. His guess would be the night before. Just as he was figuring out this logic, his guilt beginning to assuage, the thought occurred that if he had been there on time, his brother would have been taken to the hospital that much sooner. If he died when another hour might have saved him...
Before he had time to dwell on that possibility, the front door burst open and the store flooded with people. The emergency technicians found Grady tenderly picking glass splinters from Jack’s face. He didn’t notice he was cutting his own fingers.
On the heels of the ambulance team came the police, uniformed officers from two squad cars and a detective who pulled up in a blue Taurus. Grady could see all this from the window and then from the front door as they rushed in, picking their way over and around the thousands and thousands of electronic parts and boxes littering the floor.
“Grady? That you? Grady Fogarty?”
Looking down at him was a detective Grady knew from his days on the force. Marty Sprague. He’d come in direly behind the white-coated E.T.’s and ahead of the uniformed cops.
“Marty.”
“Jesus, man!” Then, “This a friend of yours?”
Grady nodded. His voice was husky. “My brother.”
“Christ!” He shook his head from side to side. “I’m sorry, Grady. Man! You just keep getting dumped on, don’t you!”
Grady let the E.T.’s take his brother and watched as they moved him carefully into the ambulance.
“I’m going with him.”
One of the emergency technicians looked at Detective Sprague who nodded his okay. As they were wheeling the stretcher toward the door, Sprague said, “Grady! I’ll need to talk to you later.” Grady glanced back, squinting in the white sun. He nodded agreement, turned, and hurried to the ambulance. Behind him, uniforms were stringing up yellow tape to secure the crime site. Car radios crackled and people coming out of storefronts and apartments were starting to form a crowd. More sirens in the distance and the sound of a dog barking barely entered Grady’s awareness as the driver slammed the doors and trotted around to the front of the vehicle.
In spite of the circumstance, his mind shot back to the last time he’d ridden in an ambulance. That time he’d been the one lying on the gurney, his left eye socket shattered by a burglar’s bullet.
He could trace a lot of shit from that moment. Bad karma, the New Age folks would say.
Somewhere during all that--the lost eye, his forced retirement from the force, the drinking that began--something snapped. It was a soft little thing--a click--but ever since, Grady’s take on life had been altered along with his physical view of the world. It was like a man with 20/20 eyesight waking up one day with astigmatism. Grady’s internal vision became slightly skewed along with the external. Nothing seemed to matter as much anymore. He settled into a new life that could more accurately be termed an existence only.
***
Speeding in an ambulance through a light mist down Dayton’s downtown streets, Grady didn’t spend too much effort thinking about the past. What he was involved with was dabbing the seeping blood from Jack’s face and concentrating all his energy on willing his brother to stay alive. It had been a long time since his pulse had raced like this. He was focused on his brother’s face.
The friend who had failed to recognize him that time would have been surprised to see the change in his body language at that moment.
CHAPTER 4
CHARLES “READER” KINCAID HEADED south and kept to county roads until he got on the Interstate about thirty miles from Dayton. Whacking out that electronics store owner wasn’t part of his original plan but once it was done, he forgot it. People in the way, you eliminated them and got on with the job. Reader Kincaid believed his victim was dead.
In Memphis he checked into a Motel 6, paying cash and signing a false name. The clerk barely glanced at the name and the license plate number, which was a fiction as well and went back to reading his Motor Trend. After finding a restaurant and polishing off most of a steak he found barely tolerable, Reader drove around until he found an outside pay phone at a Quik Mart. He used the change taken from the cash register at the electronics store.
The phone rang ten times before it was answered. Reader counted every ring and each trill without an answer got him more and more psed.
“Yeah? Whozit?”
He was drunk, Reader thought. Figures.
“In a couple of days,” Reader spoke softly into the phone. “Sunday. We’re going to take a ride in the country, show you something. I’ve got everything I need. I want you to get something. A dog. Try and get a large one. A German Shepherd. I like German Shepherds. And try and stay sober, Eddie. Get it together. I don’t want a fuckup on my hands. How come you didn’t answer right away? You stroking your trouser worm?”
***
It rained all the way back to New Orleans. Reader was deep in the state of Mississippi before he switched license plates on the Caprice, Frisbeeing the stolen tag far out into a field of sorghum. He made a total of four brief stops, twice each for gas and to relieve his bladder alongside the road.
All the way back he played the same CD. Miles Davis’ Sketches of Spain. Whenever it reached the end, he hit the restart button. It was the same record he played after killing his daddy. He liked it more than any other of his jazz tapes and CDs. Miles had made it during his flamenco period, saying to the world he was done with bop and cool. Miles was the Man.
The tune Reader liked the most was Concierto de Aranjuez. It reminded him of the bullfights he enjoyed going to in Mexico. The bullfights and jazz, those were Reader’s loves. He learned a lot, observing the way the matador thrust the sword into the bull’s neck, knowing flawlessly when and where to apply the blade. He would rather be the matador who made the initial thrust, than the torero with his short little dagger who came on for the final kill, the coup de grace, although he admired both for their skill.
He, too, was a matador. He was one of the blessed ones, the ones with the skill and the nerve. His opponent, though not possessing the brute strength of el toro, owned another strength more formidable--the strength of intelligence.
That is the way he saw himself and it filled him with pride. He reached over and turned up the volume. He made sure not to exceed the speed limit. Mississippi cops were a bitch, especially on these little lousy state highways out in the middle of nothing, with only miles of cotton fields and tarpaper shacks. Occasionally he saw a mansion sitting far back up a lane. Who the fuck wants to live in Mississippi, he thought, playing the CD over and over as he sped down the cracked ribbon of concrete, keeping his speed a safe five miles over the limit and an eye out for Smokey.
***
Standing in front of the nurse’s desk station reminded Grady that he’d logged too much time in hospitals. The people who paint and furnish these places must all go to the same decorating school, he decided. He wondered if he walked into a paint store at random and asked for “Hospital White” or “Hospital Green” whether he’d see the clerk head for a particular shelf with no hesitation.
“Are you injured too?”
It was obviously a doctor who came walking up to Grady in the hospital waiting room. He was looking at Grady’s stained shirt and at his eye patch as if trying to make a connection between the two. They’d made him leave the operating room despite his protests. The nurse who’d escorted him out was all business, the kind that didn’t take shit from anyone.
He looked down at his shirt, surprised to see dark crimson. “What? Oh. No. That’s not my blood. I’m the one who found Jack. This other thing...” He pointed in the direction of his patch, “...that happened a long time ago. How--”
“Is he? Well, I think he’s going to make it. We shou know in a few hours. By morning we’ll know more. He’s lost a lot of blood, but his pulse is stronger and we’ve operat
ed to repair as much of the damage as we could. He’s getting more plasma. His blood pressure’s better. It’s come up.” He gazed intently at Grady. “There’s something...” He paused. Grady noticed his eyes were bloodshot. The doctor massaged the back of his neck, and asked, “You’re family, I assume?”
“Fogarty. Grady Fogarty. That’s my brother Jack.” He wondered if these people ever talked to each other. He’d given the desk nurse all that information earlier. Told her the main thing she wanted to know, which was Jack’s insurance carrier.
The doctor nodded and extended his hand. “I’m Dr. Lyons, Mr. Fogarty. If your brother lives...and I’m optimistic that he will...there’s...well, there’s going to be a problem.”
“Doc, there’s something I have to know upfront. Would Jack be in better shape if he’d gotten here earlier? Say, an hour earlier?”
The doctor studied his face as if trying to figure out the reason for the question.
“No,” he said, finally. “Even if he’d been brought in two hours sooner, it wouldn’t have made any difference. Most of the real damage was done at the time of the attack.”
A nurse stuck her head around the corner and said, “Dr. Lyons? I need--”
“Give me a moment,” he said, holding his hand up, irritation in his tone. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” The nurse stood with an exasperated expression on her face, shrugged and walked away.
The doctor looked back at Grady, waited and when Grady didn’t say anything, he went on. “The thing is, he’s suffered serious brain damage. The head wound was the worst of the two. He won’t be the same man you knew. The weapon used on his head, whatever it was--”
“A brick.” Grady recalled a brick lying on the floor a few feet from Jack.
“Yes, well, the brick...whatever...damaged part of the brain tissue. We also don’t know how much feeling he’ll retain.”
“What’s that mean? He’s paralyzed? Are you sure? There’s nothing you can do? An operation, a--”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Fogarty. I wish I could tell you more. It’s too early. Nurse!” The doctor turned and addressed a heavyset young man in green scrubs who stopped and raised his eyebrows. “Tell Donovan I need those reports on my desk. Yesterday.”
He turned back to Grady. “Sorry. It gets... Listen, if you want to go in and look in on your brother for a little while, you can. He’s at the end of the hall. Intensive care, room 42. He won’t be awake for at least twenty-four hours, however. We’ve got to keep him sedated until he stabilizes. And no, at this point I can’t tell you how his injury will manifest itself. I’d prepare for the worst, however. It doesn’t look good. There’s something else.”
Two orderlies came along pushing a gurney with a woman on it and the two men stepped back against the wall. Another body. Most of Grady’s life had been spent in places like this, it seemed, watching bodies being pushed or pulled from place to place. White- and green-coated people hauling away broken bodies. He had no doubt that one day it’d be his own smashed or disease-ridden body being transported somewhere. When that time came, if he was semiconscious he’d know where he was. By the smell. When he was a kid he remembered thinking hospital smells were the odor of healing. Probably because somebody had said that to him. At this age, it smelled like death mostly. Death also had a taste. The taste of a copper penny when you held one in your mouth like you did when you were a kid.
Grady waited for the doctor to go on.
“Also, this is all going to be rather expensive.” Dr. Lyons hesitated, obviously loath to continue, but he did. “Normally, the business people take care of this, but I assume there’s only yourself in Mr. Fogarty’s family and...well...the thing is, the kinds of treatment your brother is going to need aren’t usually covered by most health plans. It’s not that we’d turn him out of course, but--”
Grady put up his hand. His eyes became dark slits. “It’ll be taken care of, whatever it is.”
Dr. Lyons looked at Grady Fogarty and anything else he was going to say, he decided to keep to himself. “Well, I thought you should...well--” His voice trailed off. He glanced at his watch and murmured something about “sorry” and reached over to put his hand on Grady’s arm. Grady turned away and went over and sat down heavily on one of the chairs in the waiting area, directly off the main corridor. The imitation leather squeaked as he slumped forward, his head in his hands. The doctor stood looking at him for the briefest of moments, shrugged and walked away briskly down the corridor.
Grady leaned his body back in the chair and closed his eye, settling back in the darkness.
He wished there were someone to call. Someone to share the bad news with. There wasn’t a single person he could think of. No relatives. Maybe some distant cousins somewhere, but nobody close. He and Jack were alike in that both of them were pretty much loners. Friends? Grady might meet a girl or two sometimes at a watering hole, but there was no one he was close to. He was fairly certain his brother didn’t have a romance going either or he would have known about it. No one in Jack’s life since his wife Sharon died five years ago. No children. Jack’s only living relative was one sorry younger brother. Him. Thinking about that made Grady sad and the sadness started turning into more of a feeling of anger.
This was bullshit. All their lives, he and Jack followed the rules, played by the book, even when it meant a disadvantage. It was something they learned from their father. Sharon used to accuse both her husband and Grady of seeing life in black and white terms. Sometimes it’s gray, you know, she often scolded, but neither of them ever felt comfortable with that concept.
A rage began to grow. Behind his eyes--good one and bad one--where he could feel it palpably. Grady gripped the sides of the chair and his face contorted, eyes closed. A woman clicked by on high heels and started to go into the waiting area. She saw the man sitting in the chair and the expression on his face. She turned and walked back the way she’d come.
Grady’s mind was a turmoil of memories and emotions. About his brother. About how Jack struggled all his life to make a living. He remembered the many years Jack put every spare dime he could come up with to help keep their mother in a decent nursing home. Grady contributed too, but the difference was he only had himself to worry about and Jack had a wife to support. The real sacrifice was Jack’s, the way Grady figured it. Their mom died after a sudden brief bout with cancer and after the medical expenses stopped there was a period when the Plan looked possible again. A laugh erupted under his breath that wasn’t a laugh at all.
For a while their dream seemed possible again. The deal was to save their money, the two brothers, and in ten years--ten years was what they estimated it would take, figuring and brainstorming for hours on end--in ten years they would do it. Jack would sell the store and Grady would take a lump sum payout of his pension and the two of them would sell their houses and other possessions. Convert everything they had to cash. Pool their money and go to Vermont. The Plan was nothing grandiose. A fishing camp on Lake Champlain on Shelburne Bay outside of Burlington. Nothing fancy. Some cabins, some fishing boats. A main lodge where Sharon would run a dining room for the fishermen. In the winter when the lake froze they’d rent setups for ice fishing and sell bait. Maybe get a couple of those ice sailboats to rent out. Offer classes on fly-tying to help make it through the slow season. If they watched their money, they figured that while they probably wouldn’t get rich, they’d do all right. The main thing was they’d be independent and would be doing what they loved the most. Fishing. The family sport.
Then Sharon got sick. One day she was smiling and excited about a new recipe book she’d bought and the next morning she was in the hospital with renal failure. There’d been no warning. It was one of those things, the doctors said. A year of dialysis, medicine, tests. None of that made a difference. Modern science wasn’t yet up to Sharon’s disease, not without a transplant, which never became available. Neither Jack nor Grady’s kidneys were compatible and she died in her sleep one morning, still ho
ping for a donor.
Jack buried his wife and the bills started to come at him. The medical expenses amounted to over two hundred thousand dollars after the insurance company sent its last check. We’re sorry your wife’s dead, the hospital told Jack in so many words, but we need our money. They got it, too. Grady sold his house and added what he cleared to Jack’s fund. Jack protested furiously, but in the end, red-faced and muttering, he accepted his brother’s gift. Jack and Sharon’s home was sold a few weeks before. That left Jack short thirty thousand, but he took care of that by getting a loan on the store, which meant the bank owned that as well. So far he’d knocked off five years’ worth of payments on a twenty-year note. It would be paid off in fifteen more years when he was sixty-three.
Fuck. Here we go again, Grady thought. Same-o, same-o.
You boys promise me you’ll help each other out, their father said, almost the last thing before he died. Family is the most important thing in life. Besides your integrity. It was the family credo. Family, honor.
Yeah. Same old shit, Pops, he thought, the bile bitter in his throat.
Wonder if he’d want us to keep our honor now, Grady thought. Well, Dad; Jack and I both have our integrity, but it looks like our bodies have been compromised. Doesn’t seem like the proper reward for living the righteous life, does it?
It ended up that Jack rented a one-bedroom apartment while Grady was a bit luckier. He found a small house he could afford to buy on a land contract. Miss a payment and it was gone. Everything changed after Sharon died. Five years of treading water with no land in sight. Life was for all purposes reduced to worrying about how he was going to come up with enough money to fix a leaking roof.
The Plan was never brought up between them after that. And now this.
After a few minutes, he got up and walked slowly down the corridor to Room 42.