by Matthew Lang
The Way You Are
THE ward was an unflinching shade of hospital green, the washed out, chalky color that Leon had only ever seen in movies. Hospitals, in his admittedly limited experience, were supposed to be a crumbly yellow or a stark, modern white, and this one was both, at least on the outside. Walking in from the glare of the spring sun, he wondered if the paint scheme was an attempt to bring the color of the park outside into the hospital, but the dullness of stereotypical surgical-gown green was so different from the vibrant green of grass and leaves that he quickly decided against it. Stereotypical. Leon suppressed a shudder at the word. It came loaded with meanings and preconceptions, some good, but mostly not. This was, after all, a “stereotypical” regional city.
Two hours from Sydney by train, Newcastle stretched along the southern bank of the Hunter River, following its curves all the way to the Tasman Sea, where Leon, like most of the residents, took to the glorious sandy beaches and surf spots that were nearly as famous as the city’s coal exports and subtropical weather. Here, shops were just starting to stay open after five and on Sundays, Chinese takeout bore no relation to China other than the occasional limp bean sprout and premade hoisin sauce, and everyone who didn’t work in the hospital or the coal industry eventually left to find a job and a better life somewhere else.
Those who stayed behind either owned the place or were absolute derros{1}. Leon was honest enough to admit that judgment was probably unfair, especially given Krissy’s parents’ successful B and B in the eastern end of town, but after going out that first Saturday night to the Great Northern Hotel and hearing the drunken jeers of bogans{2} driving around the deserted streets in battered utes{3} of muck brown or faded blue, he too now repeated the mantra that had been passed down from student to new student over the years at the university: “When you go out at night, don’t make eye contact with the locals{4}.”
The University of Newcastle, of course, was a haven for those fleeing even smaller-minded country towns, those who found the whole notion of city living just that little bit terrifying, or those who couldn’t afford—or didn’t get into—the big city campuses of Sydney or Melbourne. Leon had found university life freeing, a mass of thoughtful people willing to live and let live, or even celebrate diversity. It was at university he first felt comfortable enough to come out, at university where he first kissed a guy, and at university where he met Krissy, the first person who accepted him for exactly who he was. Or Kristina, if she was meeting a boy on a serious date.
Then the rumors had begun circulating.
“He’s where?”
“Hospital.”
“What happened?”
“Last I heard, seven broken bones, internal injuries, and a coma.”
“I thought he was going to give blood?”
“Well, that sounds like a big night out gone wrong.”
“Oh my God, are youse talking about Kim Kardashian? Have youse seen the photos?”
“What? We’re talking about Rook.”
“Rook was invited to Kim Kardashian’s party? Oh my God, that is like, so—”
“No, Rook was gay bashed.”
“Rook’s gay?”
“No way! I dated that bastard! You’re saying he drove stick the entire time?”
“Wait—is he like, famous or something?”
“No he’s a physio student hoping to transfer into med.”
“And he’s straight.”
And, some days later, when the stories had swirled around campus long enough to be published in Opus, the student newspaper, and everyone else had moved on to debating Schrödinger’s bunnies{5}, Leon finally became aware of what had happened.
And that was what brought him to room 14B in the puke-green wing of the John Hunter Hospital, named after not one but three John Hunters, one of whom had nothing to do with medicine whatsoever, but had been instrumental in breaking news of the newly discovered platypus back in the United Kingdom in 1798—a feat achieved by sending back a sketch of a live animal and the dead pelt of the first one to be encountered by humans{6}.
The room wasn’t what Leon had been expecting. For starters, it was mostly bare, with two ward beds empty and the third containing the limp figure of an aging matron, a thin, white cotton sheet doing little to conceal her bulk.
Leon focused his gaze on the furthest corner of the room, where a yellow privacy curtain had been drawn back, allowing sunlight from the nearby window to play over the unmoving figure in the fourth hospital bed. The bed was large to Leon’s eyes, and the patient it contained looked a bit like a child in comparison, even though Leon knew Rook to be at least six inches taller than himself. The bedsheets were tucked around the recumbent figure, still neat and crisp, as if they had just been fitted around his body. Obviously, coma patients didn’t move much. An unused tray table and a soft chair—upholstered in the poo brown that had been ever so popular in the 1950s or some other decade before Leon’s time—sat off slightly to one side, a bunch of wilted flowers on the bedside table, and a small stack of get well cards the only personal touches in the otherwise institutional space.
Leon would have expected a scrunched tissue or indented cushion or something—anything—to indicate the presence of parents, but apparently they lived far out in the middle of Woop Woop{7}. The last few days hadn’t been kind to Rook—or as he was known on his patient chart, Travis Rookford. The left side of his face was still swollen and bruised, the skin lacerated with a myriad of cuts that, according to newspaper sources, had been inflicted by a smashed bottle. One source{8} said Rook was lucky to not have lost an eye. His right leg was elevated and in a heavy cast, and Leon knew that somewhere under the chest bandages were a number of broken ribs, a lot of internal bruising, and a significant amount of internal bleeding.
“H-hi,” Leon said.
The only response was a triple-fluted snore from the lady in bed three and the steady beep-beep-beep of Rook’s heart monitor.
“You probably don’t remember me. Actually, I’d be surprised if you did,” Leon said, eyes wandering over the tubes that led from Rook’s muscled arm to the bag of intravenous fluid hanging from its polished metal pole on wheels. “I, uh, wanted to say thanks for sticking up for me. Well, not for me specifically but, well… us, you know? You didn’t have to do that. And if you hadn’t, you’d probably still be fine and well.”
Leon paused, “Maybe you’re wishing you didn’t say anything—not that I’d blame you, but, um… yeah… I wanted to say thanks.”
As he sat fidgeting on the poo-brown chair, Leon felt foolish, speaking to a man in a coma, whom he knew next to nothing about. “Okay, well… thanks for listening,” he said, staring down at his feet. “Assuming you can even hear me, that is.”
“He should be able to,” a new voice said.
Leon literally jumped, nearly tripping over his own feet on the way down.
“Sorry,” the deep voice said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
The nurse was young, and Leon guessed he was a student on a hospital placement. He had the build of a rugby player, with firm muscles barely hidden in the otherwise shapeless green hospital scrubs he wore. His face was broad, and his hair closely cropped. His skin was either tanned by the sun or the result of mixed parentage, and the subtle almond shape of his eyes made Leon suspect the latter.
“Geez, way to give a guy a heart attack.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” the other man said, grinning just enough to show his teeth. “I’m fully trained in CPR and emergency procedures. After all, we are in a hospital.” Then the nurse hesitated, “Wait, that was a joke wasn’t it?”
“Uh, kinda,” Leon said, somewhat taken aback.
“Right. Sorry. I have a tendency to take things very literally.”
“I see,” Leon said, more than a little uncertain if there was any socially acceptable reply to a phrase like that. There was also a slightly more certain feeling that he was being flirted with.
“Anyway, medically there are studies that suggest it’s good for coma patients to be talked to. Sometimes they can hear you even if they can’t respond, and some say it registers in their subconscious even if they can’t consciously hear you.”
“Okay,” Leon said. “That’s… good to know.”
“So… you’re a friend?” the other man asked after a moment of awkward silence.
“Me? Oh no…. We don’t really know each other at all.”
“Right… right.” The nurse’s eyebrows rose. “Sorry, I just assumed that—”
“I wanted to thank him for what he did,” Leon said. “He didn’t have to, and it meant—means a lot to me. I know, I know. It’s stupid and a little creepy and—”
“Actually, I think it’s kind of sweet.” Yep, there was definitely flirting happening. “And it’s good that you came. He doesn’t get many visitors.”
“I noticed,” Leon said, his eyes drifting back to the tiny stack of cards and the wilted flowers. “I’m Leon, by the way.”
“Warrick,” the big man said, holding out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Leon.”
“You too,” Leon replied, grasping the other man’s hand.
For a moment hazel eyes locked unflinchingly with brown, and Leon found it hard to breathe. Then the alarm on his phone went off, startling them both.
“S-sorry,” Leon said. “I gotta motor—class.”
“Of course. See you later?”
“Um… maybe,” Leon said, his cheeks flushing slightly as he darted from the room.
“SO?” Krissy asked as she flipped open her laptop in the little corner of the Student Association building that she and Leon had claimed as their own, sandwiched between the vending machines and the repainted orange wall that still bore the marks of the graffiti tag from last semester.
“So what?” Leon asked, shrugging his backpack off his right shoulder, slumping into the worn black couch cushions, and pushing up the sleeves of his hoodie.
Krissy sighed and rolled her eyes, the movement seemingly exaggerated by her mascara and eyeliner. She was dressed in bright colors, with a frilly blue cardigan over a white T-shirt, and her blonde hair was streaked with pink to match the thick frames of her glasses. “So how’d your trip to the hospital go?” she asked, her rainbow bracelets of the day clicking together along her wrists as she tapped away on her keyboard.
“It was okay,” Leon said. “Hot guy, you know?”
“Leon, he’s straight! And wasn’t he in a coma with serious injuries?”
“What? No, not Rook! The nurse.”
“Oh, that’s completely different then,” Krissy said. “What’s his name, and did you ask him out?”
“Warrick, and no,” Leon said, ducking his head and rummaging through his bag for his macroeconomic textbooks.
“Why not?”
“Did I mention he was built like a rugby player?” Leon asked. “Besides, you know I don’t ask guys out—and definitely not the really hot ones.”
Krissy blew a raspberry at him over the screen of her laptop. “That’s not an answer.”
“Guys like him don’t go for guys like me,” Leon said. “Not really,” he added, as he remembered the feel of Warrick’s hand gripping his own.
“Chickadee, guys go for whoever guys go for. I’ve told you about my ex, haven’t I? The one who dumped me when I lost weight?”
“No?”
“Sorry,” she said. “He liked his women large. Extra large. Extra, extra, extra large. He said I was too skinny for him.”
“And how thin were you then?” Leon asked, eyeing Krissy’s curves critically.
“About ten kilos heavier than I am now, thank you very much,” she replied, her eyes narrowing warningly.
“Okay, weird, I’ll accept that. That doesn’t mean I should ask Warrick out.”
“You can’t live your life hiding under a damp rock.”
“No, but I can live it that way until I get out of Newy.”
“Leon, no one here cares.”
Leon snorted, cracking open the spine of his near-pristine reader to the section on depreciation and amortization. “Tell that to Rook.”
“Touché,” Krissy said. “But you know what I mean. No one at uni cares, I don’t care, and half the artists setting up shop here are gay or queer. They’re even talking about opening a second club.”
“So it’s just everyone else then?” Leon asked. “Did you know Rook’s room was empty? Well, nearly empty?”
“What do you mean?”
“There was one bunch of wilted flowers and maybe six cards. Warrick said he didn’t get many visitors.”
“Well, he is at the other end of town.”
“With the strip clubs, bars, and sex stores between there and here?” Leon suggested.
“Come on, there aren’t that many on Hunter Street, and those that are there are hardly busy. Besides, that only counts if you’re walking back through town at midnight, and if so, you know the rule: don’t—”
“Make eye contact?”
For some reason, the resulting chuckle seemed a little forced this time around.
“You still coming to Christmas with my family?” Krissy asked.
“Christmas-Christmas? Of course,” Leon said, grinning. “I’m not spending it with mine.”
“There’s a not-Christmas Christmas?”
“The Queer Collective Christmas party.”
“Fair point,” Krissy said. “Yes, Christmas-Christmas. Do I need to tell Mum to expect a plus-one with you this year?”
Leon pulled up his hood and sank further into the couch. “No.”
Krissy grinned at him from over her laptop screen. “Okay, love, but if you happen to show up with one, it’ll be cool with the folks,” she said, her fingers flying over her keyboard. “You know Mum always cooks enough to feed an army.”
Leon smiled weakly. “Yeah.”
After a few minutes of peering at what some author had probably thought was uncomplicated talk about corporate externalities, Leon leaned back in his chair and rotated his neck, the vertebrae cracking as they protested the cramp studying gave them. “What are you working on anyway?” Leon asked. “More random code for world domination?”
Krissy made an indelicate sound. “I wish. No, legal briefs that I’m supposed to familiarize myself with by Monday.”
“Oh, right!” Leon said. “There’s the actual degree you’re enrolled in. How’s that going?”
“Good, I think,” Krissy said. “The internship’s taking most of my time, though. They’re saying I can sit in the courtroom to observe some trials soon.”
“That sounds exciting,” Leon said. “So are you going to be at Rook’s hearing?”
“Maybe,” Krissy replied. “I don’t know if that’s one that we’re holding locally or if it’s a state trial.”
“Does this mean you have to wear a suit and tone down the jewelry, or are you going to go all Legally Blonde on me?” Leon asked.
“No, I am not wearing a pink suit, thank you very much,” Krissy said. “Although I would look totally hot in one.”
“Indubitably.”
Krissy laughed and started to close her laptop. “You and your big words,” she said.
“Leaving?” Leon asked.
“Yeah, I have work tomorrow.”
“Internship,” Leon corrected mildly.
“Okay, internship,” Krissy said. “But that’s still nine to five. Eight hours of hard work. Hard actual work.”
“I don’t know how you’re going to cope,” Leon said solemnly. “See you tonight?”
“Maybe. I could be in bed by the time you get back though. I’m making spag bol, so there’ll be some in the fridge for you regardless,” Krissy said. “And if you’re free on the weekend, you can
catch me up on Rook and the hunky nurse.”
“Like there’ll be anything to say,” Leon grumped. “I probably won’t see him again.”
YEAH, right, Leon thought the next day as he stepped off the blue-and-white bus and walked through the doors into the slightly antiseptic-smelling hospital air on his way to room 14B. It wasn’t Warrick. At least, he told himself it wasn’t Warrick. It was really the dying flowers and six lonely cards. When he walked back into the room, little had changed. The chair was still an ugly poo brown and the table still unused, although it appeared that someone had put one of those plastic strip things over the snoring lady’s nose in an attempt to reduce her volume. It wasn’t working too well, but at least instead of a constant “snore, snore, snore… snort, snore,” the sound she was making was much more a “mrrr, mrrr, mrr, mrr, mrr… blort,” which was at least a marginal improvement—except for the blort.
Dropping his backpack on the chair, he took the flowers from the jam-jar-cum-vase and dumped them in the sparkling clean rubbish bin before taking the jar to the bathroom to clean it out. Once dry, Leon refilled it with large colored sand granules and a vanilla scented candle and returned it to the table. Probably something that would never get used, but it looked nicer at least.
“Hey, Rook,” he said as he finished and pulled his course reader and a small netbook out of his backpack. “I hope you don’t mind me hanging out here. I just thought I’d get some study done. I, uh, got an essay due and lots of time to kill. My friend Krissy’s working, and I’m not on shift until six, so my day is pretty much open.”
Rook said nothing, but then, Leon hadn’t really expected him to.
OVER the next few weeks, Leon found himself at the hospital more and more. As Krissy became increasingly absorbed in her internship, he found the quiet of the hospital room a welcome change to the natter of the student union and less busy than even the library. More to the point, it also had better eye candy.
“Join me for a coffee, Leon?” Warrick asked, poking his head into the room.
Leon looked up from his notes on Giffen goods{9} and smiled. “Again? Is it break time already?” he asked with a grin.