“Yes.”
“Police officers are patrolling the neighborhoods. You could just find one and he can help round up an EMT. That might be faster.”
“Yes,” I said. “I saw one on my way here. I'll try to catch up with him.” I ended the call, poked my head inside the house, and said, “Mr. Xerxes, I've called 911. They're going to send a police officer or EMS. But I'm going to go try to find Officer Cooper.”
I looked up and down the block but didn't spot his patrol car. I dashed towards my vehicle then decided that given all the obstacles in the street it might be faster to search on foot. I chugged halfway up the street, then halfway down without seeing anyone much less the officer. Sweat pouring off my face and my knee aching, I returned to my car.
Driving barely faster than I could walk, I cruised the length of Starboard Lane to no avail. I turned onto the next street then the next when at last I spied a black-and-white. I fought the urge to speed up. At my approach, Officer Cooper stepped from his car.
“Hi, it's me again,” I said. “I really don't mean to be trouble. I found my friend on Starboard Lane. I think he's sick. I need help from EMS. Maybe an ambulance. I called 911 but they said it might be faster to find you.”
Officer Cooper nodded. “What's the house number again?”
“1316.”
“I'll round someone up. You go back to the house and I'll meet you there.”
I drove back to Starboard Lane as fast as prudently possible to find the man still on the couch, his position unchanged.
“I'm getting help, Mr. Xerxes. Is there anything I can do for you in the meantime?”
His eyelids fluttered. “Katy,” was all he said.
“Who's Katy, Mr. Xerxes? Your wife? Your daughter? Sister?” I heard a sound behind me and turned to face Officer Cooper. “He might have something contagious, Officer. You might want to keep your distance.”
“What about you?” he asked. “Hold on, I'll be right back.” A moment later he returned with a face mask much like what I would buy if I planned to spray paint. “We never know what we'll be getting into so we don't go far without these.” He lifted his cap, pulled the cloth-like mask over his nose and mouth. He handed me one. “Put that on.”
I did as instructed. It made it harder to breathe and my face got hot and sweaty under the mask but Officer Cooper was right; it was a wise move. I hoped I hadn't already inhaled something harmful.
The officer approached the old man. “I'm Officer Cooper. Hang in there, sir, we're getting you some help.” He turned to me and took out a notepad. “What's his name,” he asked, his voice muffled by the mask. “How old is he? Does he have any chronic health problems? Is he on medication? Does he have any kin nearby?”
I held my hand up against the flood of questions. “Honestly, I can't give you an answer. I don't really know him at all. I found something of his—at least I think it's his—in my yard. I was just trying to return it.”
Officer Cooper cocked his head. “Well, that was a right nice thing to do, and he's lucky you did.” He glanced in Francisco Xerxes' direction. “Else we could have a Hurricane Harvey casualty on our hands.” Above the mask, his eyes softened. “Sorry I was so rough on you earlier.”
“No apology necessary,” I said. “You were doing your job.”
Behind him, the door squeaked. A man in his thirties entered. Dressed in a pale green scrub suit with an EMS badge embroidered on the shirt, he carried a duffle bag emblazoned with a caduceus. He too wore a face mask.
“Hey, Quentin, thanks for getting here so fast.” Officer Cooper reached out to shake the man's latex-gloved hand.
“What have we got?” asked the EMS tech.
“Not sure,” said Officer Cooper. “We were hoping you could tell us.”
The tech knelt next to Mr. Xerxes and clasped his wrist. “Well, he's got a pulse. A good sign. He's got some cardiac output.” Quentin rummaged in his bag, retrieved a blood pressure cuff, and tested further, recording the results, and went on to measure the man's breathing. “Yeah, something's up with his lungs,” he said. “I'm going to check for secondary injuries. What's his name? What about any existing medical conditions?”
They both turned to me. I shrugged and explained again my relationship, or lack thereof, to the ailing man.
Quentin took the old man's hand. “Sir, if you are Francisco Xerxes, squeeze my hand if you can.”
Our breaths held, the silence was almost palpable. From where I stood, I could hear the old man's labored respiration.
Quentin turned to face us. “I think I got a response. Let's go with 'yes.' Coop, check the bathroom and kitchen cabinets and the bedside table. If you find any bottles of medications, bring them to me. They'll give me a clue about any chronic conditions he's being treated for.”
Officer Cooper returned with an armload of orange containers capped with white lids and dumped them on the coffee table. Quentin pawed through them. “Fairly typical stuff for hypertension, blood sugar, sleep disorders, arthritis, pain. If he's behind on some of these it could explain his collapse. We need to get him to a hospital.” He stood. “I'll take him. It'll be faster. By the time an ambulance works its way down here, I'd be halfway there. I've got a stretcher. Be right back.”
Quentin hustled from the room, returned moments later, and unfolded the stretcher. “Coop, help me lift him. I don't think he's got anything broken but let's try not to jostle him. Ma'am, please grab my bag for me?”
The two men carried Mr. Xerxes out to a white Suburban parked in the middle of the street, its rear hatch door standing open.
“Where's your van?” I asked, used to seeing EMS techs driving pickup trucks fitted with box vans.
“The city vehicles were damaged in the storm.” Quentin and Officer Cooper slid the stretcher into the cargo area. “Lots of us are using our personal vehicles. Technically this is a non-transport vehicle but given the circumstances, I'm doing what I can.” Quentin closed the door, took his bag from me, and trotted to the driver's side. “I'll take him to Bay Area. That's the closest. Ma'am, do you know where that is? Do you have a car?”
“Yes.”
“Would you follow me there? Admitting will need information I can't provide.”
Neither can I, I thought, but wasn't about to argue.
Chapter Five
At the hospital, I scurried to the Emergency Room lobby where Quentin was registering Mr. Xerxes. The patient had already been transferred to a gurney. Nurses wheeled the man to an examining room.
“This is Juneiffer Cosco,” Quentin told the Admissions nurse. “She can fill you in.” He turned to me. “Gotta run back to Port A. Thanks for everything you did. And I'm sure Mr. Xerxes will thank you too.”
He dashed to the exit without waiting for my reply.
The nurse turned to me. “Hi, I'm Nurse Sanchez. Quentin says you're the patient's emergency contact. How do you spell your name?”
I spelled it out for her. “But I'm not—” For something like the third time that day, I explained how I ended up at Mr. Xerxes home.
“And you don't know how to contact any of his family, or friends?”
I shook my head.
The nurse scratched her head with the end of her stylus. “Were you about to leave too?”
“Well, I guess I'd like to hear if he's going to be OK.”
The nurse gave a sigh of relief. “You can wait there.” She pointed to a lounge area off the emergency room lobby. “Give your name to the receptionist and we'll contact you as soon as we learn something.”
I left the rows of people slumped in stack chairs waiting to be admitted and entered the lounge. I found the cool, dry, floral-scented air preferable to the sweat and disinfectant odor of the emergency room lobby. Carpeting, upholstered loveseats and chairs, end tables with reading lamps, and a wall-mounted TV strove for an atmosphere more relaxed than the emergency room lobby, but did little to relieve the tension of those waiting for news. They perched on the edges of their seats
, their shoulders hunched and their faces pinched. I registered with the volunteer, a young woman with a nose ring, three pairs of earrings, and purple-striped hair. At a console table furnished with beverage servers and a plate of individually-wrapped cookies, I fixed myself a cup of coffee then took a seat.
The magazines on the end tables held nothing of interest. The TV offered a show on home decorating. Home repair would be more useful, I thought. At least the hospital had Wi-Fi. I caught up on my email, then Facebook. The neighbor-to-neighbor networking page was filled with woeful tales of people returning to find their homes presenting staggering problems, or beyond repair altogether. Various organizations held fort around town to distribute supplies or food. The local animal rescue organization had even arranged for delivery of free cat litter, dog food, and other pet supplies, none of which were available for sale anywhere in Port Aransas.
I leaned back against the cushions and closed my eyes.
A young female voice calling “Ms. Cosco?” startled me awake.
“Mr. Xerxes' nurse has some news for you. He's been moved from Emergency to a ward on the fourth floor.”
“Thanks,” I said, grateful for some activity. On Mr. Xerxes' floor, the nurse in charge, an earnest young man named Netzel, said, “We're still not sure exactly what's wrong with him. We've run a few tests and we're waiting on the results. It could be mold poisoning or tetanus. We're seeing a lot of that from folks whose homes were damaged. He might have a pre-existing condition that got out of control.
“You can talk to him if you want but he's still out of it. He's had moments of consciousness. When he is lucid, he asks for Katy. Who's Katy?”
I wished I knew. It might not even be a real name. It might be a nickname, short for Katherine. Or Kathleen, Or Katrina, or a host of Kat-type names. It could be a pet name unrelated to any of those. “I don't know,” I said.
Nurse Netzel pushed the door open and waved me in.
I found the old man lying almost supine, oxygen tubes in his nostrils, eyes closed.
“Mr. Xerxes?”
I thought I saw his eyelids flutter but he didn't speak. “I'm sorry you're having so much trouble getting back on your feet.” I got no response. “I want to tell you, I found your crystal collection.”
His lips trembled. “Katy,” he breathed.
“Are they for Katy?” I asked. “You keep asking for Katy but no one knows who she is. I'll try to find her but sir, you must tell me more.”
He seemed to suck in more oxygen. In a choked voice he murmured “Gone.” He held out his arm, fist clenched, and unwrapped his fingers. On his palm lay an item not much thicker than a pen, and not much longer. The slim hexagonal lozenge of clear crystal was pointed at one end and capped in filigreed gold at the other. It could be a pendant meant to hang from a chain but it looked for all the world like a magic wand. It was the same type of crystal as the figurines in the carton, and I thought it might be part of that collection.
“Yours now,” Mr. Xerxes said, his voice more gasp than whisper. “Enlil called you.”
Enlil? Who was Enlil?
“He had that with him when he was admitted,” the nurse said. “We couldn't pry it away. It seemed important to him so we gave up trying.”
I remembered how the man's fist was clenched when I first found him.
“We wanted to put it in Personal Property for safekeeping but he's refused to part with it. Until now. You're a good friend. He's lucky to have you.” Nurse Netzel patted me on the shoulder and hurried off.
I drifted down the corridor. The sense of accomplishment for having located Mr. Xerxes had dissipated, replaced by the burden of now having to find Katy.
Weary, I headed home. It occurred to me that Quentin, Officer Cooper, and I left Mr. Xerxes' house without locking the door. It would be no welcome for him to return home after a hospital stay only to find it looted, or worse, taken over by squatters. Port Aransas's newly homeless people would prefer a roof, anyone's roof, over their head to sleeping on the beach.
Mr. Xerxes might have had a house key on him when he was admitted. The hospital would have secured it with any other personal property. I was too tired to inch back to Corpus Christi to ask for it. Instead, I returned to Starboard Lane. Surely somewhere I would find a spare house key.
I put my mask back in place and stepped into the house. I opened the coat closet hoping for a rack mounted on the inside of the door. Hooks held a variety of caps and hats but no keys. I found jackets and coats, all menswear, their pockets empty. I lifted the lids of the shoeboxes on the closet shelf to find various receipts but no spare key.
In the living room, I probed countertops, drawers, and shelves to no avail. I continued down the hall. The carpeting had gotten soaked and dried and crunched underfoot.
I searched the kitchen for a plaque with hooks for hanging keys but the only things hanging from hooks were coffee mugs, discolored from years of use. The kitchen stank of old food. I found a nearly-empty refrigerator held only cans of soda, bottles of water, and a few beers. Under the kitchen sink, Styrofoam takeout boxes like the ones from the donation stations filled a waste can.
Note to self: grab the garbage on the way out and drop it in the trash barrel so the stink doesn't worsen.
I moved onto the bedroom. Raised up about half a foot on turned legs, the dresser's bottom drawer narrowly missed flooding. The bed's dust ruffle, however, would need washing.
Atop the dresser, a gilt metal picture frame held a black-and-white photo picturing a man and a woman, maybe in their twenties, and an infant. The man in the photo might be Francisco Xerxes in much younger days but it was hard to be sure. Was one of the women Katy? Maybe the back of the photo held a clue. I managed to release the photo but its reverse was blank.
I rummaged around the bedroom, poking like a burglar into the wooden valet, the bedside table, the dresser, the closet, to no avail. Defeated, I decided to leave, turn the front door lock, and pull the door closed. That would present a problem to Mr. Xerxes on his return but it seemed to be a better option than leaving the place unsecured. Anyway, for all I knew, he had hidden a spare key somewhere or given one to a neighbor.
On my way out I stopped in the bathroom to use the toilet. Lo and behold, Mr. Xerxes had used it too at some point in the day, and left his keyring and his wallet on the sink.
I breathed a sigh of relief and pocketed them.
I grabbed the bag of kitchen trash, locked the door, and stepped off the porch where the rocker swayed, jostled by the faint breeze.
Chapter Six
Over morning coffee, I pondered how to spend the day. Earlier in the summer I volunteered for the “Marlin Academy” to greet children as they arrived for the school day. I knew that pressures at home could distract even the youngest student. Sometimes all it took was a smile or a kind word to get the school day back on track.
The classroom buildings smashed, Port Aransas schools had yet to reopen. I wondered what parents would do, saddled not just with disaster recovery but with restless children on an extended summer vacation.
And so much for finding something to do with myself, maybe even befriend some parents.
Which did I want to wrestle with today, the rubble in the yard, antagonistic contractors, or the insurance representatives regarding my claims? With a sigh, I decided on the latter. Without knowing how much the settlement was going to be, I couldn't hire someone to make repairs, assuming anyone was willing.
Form letters from the various agencies encouraged me to check my account online. I had one lonely bar on my cell phone. I logged onto a site only to lose the Internet connection. During rare past Internet outages, I had only to drive a few miles north to the Port Aransas CoffeeWaves to use their free WiFi. The hurricane had closed the entire strip shopping center in which it was located, but CoffeeWaves had sister shops in Corpus Christi.
Disaster recovery transformed Port Aransas from a vacation destination to a commuter town. Northbound traffic was bumper to
bumper with tradesmen's trucks and displaced property owners headed for a day of repairing structures in which they couldn't live or work. Service vehicles crowded the shoulder of the southbound lane.
I passed the Mustang Island State Park hugging the Gulf shoreline. Instead of RVs and travel trailers, a fleet of bucket trucks filled the pads. Parked with their goosenecks extended at similar angles, they looked for all the world like a flock of mammoth white cranes.
The overpass crossing the Packery Channel was like a wormhole from the storm-torn Port Aransas to Corpus Christi. Other than a forty-eight-hour power outage, that city sustained comparatively little damage. Mountains of trash didn't blight the scenery and every other roof didn't wear a blue tarp. Street corners didn't house pop-up-canopy camps offering free bottled water and free food. Never known to be litter-free, Corpus Christi’s streets looked pristine compared to those of Port Aransas.
At the coffeehouse, I claimed a two-top within easy reach of an outlet. I set down my accordion file bulging with paperwork for insurance claims and strode to the counter to order a coffee. I was running low on coffee at home and anyway, I owed the store something for taking up a seat and using their free Wi-Fi.
I booted up my phone, checked my email, and replied to well-wishers wanting updates on my recovery progress but I lacked anything new to report. I checked the status of my FEMA and TWIA claims on their Web sites. My accounts were “open,” which told me nothing.
With a sigh, I scrolled through the neighbor-to-neighbor Facebook page. I made notes about contractors recommended for repair work and scammers to avoid. I followed a long thread about which was the preferred solution for combating black mold: water and bleach or hydrogen peroxide and vinegar.
The site urged church and philanthropic groups that sent volunteers to register at the Volunteer Center. Those who needed a hand or some muscle could apply for assistance. I dialed the coordinator's phone number and described the damage to my house.
The Magical Book of Wands Page 22