The November Criminals: A Novel

by Sam Munson

  I wasn’t in Philip Sidney Memorial Hospital for long. Four nights, three days. Hospital life is boring and difficult. They had me on an IV, and I had to take it with me everywhere. To the bathroom or to go get examined or whatever. It goes alongside you on this tall, ill-balanced metal tower with squeaky wheels. You move like a weak old man. You have to wear those ass-baring sterile gowns. I slept a lot. I was tired. I felt like I’d become oversensitive to gravity, or something. Every movement cost two or three times as much effort as usual. You ever get that feeling? It’s frustrating, even sort of terrifying. But it helps you sleep. I have trouble sleeping. Everyone who knows me knows I have trouble sleeping. My sleeps in Sidney Memorial Hospital remain the most accomplished of my life. I slept and ate the putrid hospital food, all of which tasted sweet, eggs, sausage, whatever it was. It all had a horrible sweetness. The food nurses or whatever arranged it on trays, put all this aesthetic effort into it.

  I had a nice little room, or what I call a room to save time. It was a curtained-off alcove. It did have a window. You could see a vista of bare trees and sky. Sometimes a cloud. I was in a bad state when I first got there. Mr. Broadus took me after I collapsed in his house. I cut the back of my head on his piano keys. There must have been a lot of blood. He put a wadded-up hand towel to the wound, and somehow managed to get my father’s name from me, and then called him. I don’t know how he accomplished this. I was delirious. But the doctors told me that Mr. Broadus sat with me till my father arrived, holding the fruit-printed dish towel against my wound. I found it, after I’d been admitted, and hid it at the bottom of the garbage pail in my room, while my father was out taking a leak.

  My main doctor, Dr. Paull, told me later I’d been running a fever of close to 105, the temperature at which your brain denatures or something. He suspected it was viral, just a virus that had gone untreated. Gotten out of control due to poor health maintenance. Nothing remarkable at all. Which insulted me. Who wants to hear that his disease is nothing special? He asked me if I’d been under a lot of stress lately, or gone through any traumatic events. I told him no. He said he understood. He said he had a daughter my age, and he understood that young people think they’re invincible. “But you only get one body,” he admonished. “I had to stitch up the back of your head. You fell on a piano, you say? First time I’ve ever heard that!” He tugged at the golden flukes of his mustache. Then he said, “I guess you’ll see sharp from now on!” and permitted himself a full-throated chuckle. His mustache I can only describe by saying that if a six-month-old baby could grow a full and luxuriant mustache, it would be that corn-silken color and texture. His skin was baby pink with the flush of permanent health.

  All this biography comes after I resurfaced. I spent my first day under, with this viral issue Dr. Paull told me about. I told you about the echoing darkness. That sort of continued for a while, and then I slipped in and out of consciousness. I felt too hot, I felt too cold, sweat glued my flimsy robe to my shoulders, my joints throbbed. I kept thinking that there was a weird skylight directly over my head, one looking out onto a glaring white sky. This turned out to be an über-normal fluorescent panel light. I figured that out the day before my father brought Rage for me to read. That’s when my fever broke and my perceptions returned to normal. He was sitting in the low wooden chair across the room from my bed. That’s when I asked him for my Loeb. He nodded glumly, and said he would bring it tomorrow. He sat in that chair for at least an hour every day, till the end of my short stay. He didn’t ask me anything, at first, about what had happened. Just fingered the tip of his ponytail. But midway through his second visit, some minutes after he’d finished enthusing about Rage, he directed his glance to the floor and asked me a question.

  “Addison, we need to talk. Something has been going on these past few weeks. I know it. Call it intuition. You know how intuitive I am. I want you to tell me. I won’t be angry. But I want you to tell me. I mean how you ended up in here.” Right out of a parenting textbook, ladies and gentlemen. I blew air through my nostrils.

  “It’s nothing, Dad. I just made a mistake. I had like a viral thing, and I got all confused. Okay? You don’t need to worry. Okay?”

  I expected him to give up, then, as he normally does. This is about as far as his questioning goes. But he kept his eyes on the linoleum, and kept talking.

  “Addison, Mr. Broadus told me that you’ve been putting up flyers about that classmate of yours? His son? And that you came to his house? He told me he thought you were on drugs. He said you fell and hit your head. Are you on drugs?”

  How is it that an adult, like my father, who has obviously at least smoked weed in his life, and maybe even dropped acid, can use the word drugs like that? It’s like saying, “Did you eat food? Did you drink liquid?” If you’re “on” something, it’s drugs. So why not specify? I gave him the obligatory answer: “No, I’m not on drugs.” He still did not lift his eyes.

  “You can, you know, tell me stuff, Addison. I’ll understand. We all make mistakes. Was it part of that project you mentioned? I mean, I can understand that. If it was for school.”

  This made me even more tired.

  “Yes, Dad. It was for school. It was part of the project. Okay? Is that okay?” I heaved the lie out, not caring that it sounded false. He went quiet. My blood beat at my temples. In the hall, a gurney wheel squeaked and a wave of cross talk followed. Then my father spoke again.

  “Addison, is Phoebe pregnant?”

  I couldn’t restrain my laughter. I just couldn’t. It bubbled out of me; exhausted as I was, I heaved up and down in my bed with it, chanting, “Yes, Dad, she’s pregnant. Okay? She’s totally pregnant. And we’re totally getting married and having the baby. Okay? Okay?” By the time I’d finished, he had lifted his eyes from the floor, and the hurt in them was visible enough to shut me up. We didn’t speak too much, after that.

  I had two other visitors. I was more popular in the hospital than I am outside of it. The first person to come and talk to me other than my father was Archer B. Sexton. Remember him? The man with the interchangeable name? The man who wrote the disgusting article about Kevin? An historically black institution, etc.? That guy. I’d never met him before. Despite the considerable part he played in the events of my senior fall. He’d heard about the posters. He wanted to ask me about them. For an article, he said. I’d never considered that they would catch the attention of the media. Otherwise I would not have put them up. He was out of breath when he arrived. He came when my father had gone out to get a soda. Sexton still had his weird pomegranate facial coloration, and his voice was still extra gay.

  My interview with Interchangeable Archer didn’t last long. He introduced himself—“Hi, Addison. I’m Arch Sexton. From the Post”? With a pause, maybe in case I said, “Oh God, not the Arch Sexton!” and started hyperventilating. I just stared. Bugging out my eyes on purpose. To freak him out, you know? Then he started talking about the flyers, how he thought it was noble, he was interested in how I’d come to do it, whether I’d accomplished anything. Et cetera. He talked and talked. I cut him off by saying, “Kevin was a strong and quiet presence, though blessed with a genuine musicality, a strong rhythm. He’ll be remembered and missed.” Sexton scribbled this down in his little notebook and looked to me for more copy. Eyes round and ready. Avid, even. So I pulled my blankets up over my head and ignored him till he went away. It took almost twenty minutes. Stupidity can be a form of strong character. “Why are you lying like that, Addison?” my father asked when he got back. I peeped out. He had a sweating maroon can of Shasta Cola (a product I have only ever seen available in the vending machines of Philip Sidney Memorial Hospital) and took a long slurp when I failed to answer.

  So that was a big letdown for Sexton, I’m sure. If I ever get to a point in life where I can fire him, or maybe run him over with a car and make it look like an accident, I will. That twenty minutes made hospital life even worse. All I had to read was Rage. Only my father to talk to. And then
Sexton. I mean, what the fuck? I guess when things start sucking, they just get worse, and if they’re going well, they just get better. Or I would guess that. But on the third morning, when I had just opened my eyes from a real champion sleep, I saw Digger poised in the dropsical-cushioned muddy mauve visitor’s chair, where my father normally would be.

  “Hey, man,” I croaked. She was clenching her turquoise-beaded bag. Lips parted for speech. She’d put a crimson streak in her hair, above her brow. She had on her necklace from Chile and a black T-shirt with a picture of this musician she admires, Lou Reed. And she was wearing makeup, which she never does. I know I told you she’s not hot. But I swear to fucking God: at that moment some beauty was in her or shone through her, a beauty that demands respect and even fear, but good fear. I had never seen anyone or anything so infused with such impersonal beauty. Even in the dead light of my room you could see it.

  “Did you call my mother the C-word?” she asked me, as her bouncing heel made the beads on her bag clack.

  “No, I don’t know your mother,” I said. It took me a while to wake up during the days of my short convalescence. I think they were medicating me or something.

  “Addison. Addison. Earth to Addison.” Snapping her fingers.

  “Oh, wait. Yes. Yes, I technically did,” I answered. I knew what she was referring to now. The phone call. That put me back on terra cognita.

  “Yeah. She said you did. A couple weeks ago. On the phone. I was just checking.”

  “Digger, man,” I stammered.

  “Addison,” she interjected, then pitched a sigh, clapped her hands once. “You’re not dying? Your father seems incredibly worried. I spoke to him. He’s outside. He’s looks mopey, sort of.” Big surprise there.

  “No, it was just like a virus. And I got stitches in the back of my head. I think I’m basically okay.”

  “Seriously, though. Why did you call her that?” She was not accusing me of anything. Maybe she just wanted a valid reason why. Maybe she kind of admitted the possibility that her mother might be a cunt. Digger’s honest about people. She was spreading her hands now.

  “I don’t know, man. Because I was pissed off at you. I mean at her, at her. I mean at her. Just about everything. About. Well, you know.” The beads rattled, but she stayed calm.

  “Don’t call her that. I don’t even call her that. Maybe you can call her a bitch. But not the C-word. All right? Is that going to be a problem for you? How did you cut your head?” I fingered the sticky, tight, wiry comb of sutures, and the thrillingly bald region around them. I hadn’t seen the wound. You need two mirrors to see the back of your head. I didn’t even have one.

  “From a piano. I cut it on a piano,” I continued.

  “What do you mean?” She shifted her eyebrows into the double uptick of incredulity.

  “From the keyboard?” I said, suddenly interrogative. She has that effect on me.

  “Okeydokey. From a piano. Pianos are like known for their deadliness. Are you coming back to school soon?” I nodded and she sighed again. “Okay. Okay. You’re probably all doped up. I have to go. And I can’t believe you called my mother the C-word. It’s totally unconscionable to do that. I have a French test.”

  “Okay, man,” I mumbled. I’d been so shocked by her appearance that I had no time to feel happiness, and now that she was leaving I was too shocked to feel unhappiness. So I tipped her a salute, two fingers, über-professional. She gave me one of her looks. Like she was a grizzled old gunnery sergeant, and I was a green recruit. Exasperated and amused. Then she returned my salute.

  “Digger,” I muttered.

  “What? What do you want?” She was poised in the doorway, ready to go to war.

  “They’re showing that movie. Like part two? At the Camelot? The Sorrow and the Pity. Do you wanna go?”

  “Are you asking me out?” This is her standard response. Whenever I suggest we do anything. And my standard response is, “Only in your wet ones.”

  This time, I did not say that, but rather: “Yeah. It’s in November, according to the calendar. Near the end of November. We already missed a showing.” She started gnawing on her thumb knuckle. I looked her in the face. I didn’t feel ashamed, although according to our agreement, I should have. But fuck the agreement. I was in the hospital. And if Digger could bend her principles enough to break her vow of silence, I could say, Yeah. She gave me a nod, almost imperceptible, frightened, except she’s never frightened. And strode out, back to Kennedy and her French exam. She maintains a ninety-nine average in all classes. I was confident she was going to ace it. Andromaque, je pense à vous! That’s from some poem she had to read in French. (You are a classy motherfucker, Addison Schacht!) Except Digger’s fifty times better than Andromache. Who was, after all, a consummate Trojan.

  “I’m still not talking to you, by the way,” Digger shouted from the hall. Other than that, I don’t have much to say about hospitals.

  XVII.

  THEY DISCHARGED ME the fourth evening, Wednesday evening. Took me out to my father’s car in a wheelchair, which humiliated me. Then we went home. My room seemed strange. I slept, though, which as I said is rare for me. I slept well that night, and the next night, and the next, and the next. Nothing had changed! All the dumb artsy objects still cluttered our house. I don’t know what I was expecting. Some visitation. Who the fuck knows? My father said I didn’t have to go back to school until I felt “up to it,” as he put it. He told me he would write me a note. I ended up missing the rest of that week and all of the next. I didn’t do much on my unforeseen vacation, though. I didn’t sell weed. My pager’s memory was maxed out, so that every new page coming erased the previously oldest one. Some ancient cultures used to think that’s how birth and death work. Over the centuries, that idea was refined into what we call the transmigration of souls. I lay around like a sack of shit. I reread book six of the Aeneid. (Holy fuck!) My father kept coming down to check on me. He also asked me if I had enjoyed Rage, which I told him I did. He had gotten über into it. I looked through college mail, which had started arriving last year and had continued. Those sumptuous brochures.

  My father cooked for me, the same meal every night. Bitter salad and scrambled eggs. Impressive, for a man who never eats. My father is not the best dinner companion. He’s silent and he chews with his mouth open. Two traits you’d think would not occur in the same character. He did refrain from giving his suicide-by-bus speech. Mark that in the positive column. And he did not try to get all buddy-buddy with me, to work up some fake friendship between us, to compensate for his usual neglect. You have no idea how grateful I was for that. I mean, it would have just been impossible. If you see what I mean.

  I still had some business matters to deal with, after my discharge. The disappearance of my money had made these considerably easier. I figured Mr. Broadus had kept it. Otherwise I would have heard something about it from my father. That, ladies and gentlemen, would have been a real fucking disaster. My pager, my safe, even the huge amount of Biggie bags and the scale I could explain away, as long as they were not discovered all at the same time. But eighteen grand? That’s a major piece of evidence. I spent a bad couple of days biting my nails over it. What could I do, though? It was completely out of my hands. It’s not like my father would turn me in to the cops. He might take away my car. But, like I said, I’m not a huge fan of driving. So I stopped worrying. Maybe Mr. Broadus would keep it, as compensation for my idiocy. I had invaded his life. Or launched a lateral assault on it, for the worst reasons. Maybe he thought I owed him. I did. Maybe he’d buy a new car, something other than that age-dulled blue sedan. He never showed up to accuse me, and my father never found out about it.

  The first of the remaining to-dos was getting rid of my industrial-size supply of Biggie-brand bags. This was harder than you might think. I had a case of them that I bought at a bulk store with Digger. We’d gone as a joke. I saw this palletload of Biggies, and it was a hundred bucks or something. I’d been using it f
or two years and had made this tiny dent. The columned boxes, blue and green, overladen with praiseful copy, line the whole left side of my business closet. So I had to sneak them out in leaf bags. In six loads. I did this in the middle of my first night back, rushing back and forth across our backyard to the spot on the alley side of our fence where trash is left for pickup. I was barefoot in the cold. You get, if you’re a D.C. resident, a huge green container for regular garbage and a smaller blue one for recycling. Our green bin was already full. So I just left the bags in kind of a mound at its base, hoping for the best. The chill stung the shaved spot on my scalp, and made the healing lips of the wound pucker. My scale I left that same night on the curb in front of some random house a few blocks away with a note: Perfectly good scale. I put on my shoes and coat to make that trip. It had been taken when I looked the next day. I just chucked my plastic tub of orange peel scraps. That was easy. This left only my pager, my weed, and my gun.