by David Archer
Sam managed a smile and gave a thumbs up, but he couldn't get his head to work well enough to speak. He tried to raise it and look around, but something big and dark fell over him, and everything was gone.
* * * * *
When the lights came up again, Sam thought he must have died, because this much white must be Heaven. He'd always known he was good with the Lord, ever since that church camp when he was twelve, and even though he'd made a few mistakes along the way, he was still sure of his ticket to the Pearly Gates. He was glad he'd never let himself get like so many others who tossed it off, pretended they cared about God but didn't really even believe in him. Sam believed. He'd held on to that faith, and now that he'd bought the farm, here he was, in what had to be Heaven, because no place on earth could ever look so clean!
A nurse walked in and saw that he was awake, and the whole fantasy of Heaven popped like a bubble. “Aw, crap,” he said, and the nurse raised her eyebrows.
“Excuse me?” she asked.
Sam shook his head. “Sorry about that,” he said, “it had nothing to do with you. It was just I thought for a minute I'd got killed and gone to Heaven, and I was kinda enjoying the idea. Then you came in and I realized I was still alive and stuck in this mess.”
The nurse scowled. “Well, forgive me for ruining your day, Mr. Prichard, but it's good to see you awake, anyhow. The doctor wanted to know as soon as you woke up, so I'll go call him now.” She turned and flounced out the door.
“Bout damn time you woke up,” he heard from over to his left, and he looked over to see Dan there in another bed. “I been layin' here a day and a half waitin' for you to decide if you was gonna live or not. Glad you decided to stick it out!”
Sam smiled at his partner, and felt a sharp pain in his right hip as he rolled his head to look closer at him. “Ow,” he said, and then again, “Ow! How bad you get hit, Danny?”
“Not terrible, just took one in the side that didn't even manage to hit anything important. Hurts like hell, though.”
Sam looked at the bracelet on his right wrist, but it said nothing about what might be wrong with him. He felt his hip, and realized that there was an awful lot of gauze there, and it was terribly numb. “What happened to me?” he asked, but Dan shrugged his shoulders.
“I dunno,” he said. “Docs won't tell me squat, on account of you never makin' an honest woman outta me.”
Sam's eyes narrowed. “What?”
“Because we ain't married, or otherwise related, the docs say I got no right to know how bad you got hit, and wouldn't tell me zilch. I tried to explain that your partner is closer than a wife, but they didn't buy it.”
“Good,” Sam said, “I don't buy that crap either. If you were closer than a wife, you'd be over doin' my dishes.”
“Well, well, Mr. Prichard,” came another voice, and Sam turned to see a doctor walk in. “How are you feeling today?”
“I ain't worth a crap!” Sam answered. “I'm tryin' to find out how bad a shape I'm in, so if you're not the guy who can tell me, go find him, okay?”
The doctor smiled. “I'm Doctor Schmidt, and I'm definitely the guy,” he said, “so relax and stop picking on my nurses.” He picked up a clipboard that was hanging on the foot of the bed and glanced through the top couple of pages.
Sam shifted his position, and said, “Ow!” The doctor looked up and smiled.
“Well, that tells me that you know where you got shot, anyway. Your right hip was hit three times, all of them deflected down into it from your bulletproof vest. The right acetabulum, the socket that your thighbone's ball end fits into, was shattered, and we had to go in and basically put it all back together with several tubes of superglue and a handful of screws. You're going to be in a wheelchair for a while, because the glue and screws we put in won't stand up to a lot of walking around, and we don't want to put a cast on you at this point.”
Sam was stunned. “A wheelchair? A wheelchair? What kinda cop you know goes around in a wheelchair? How long will I be outta work, Doc?” The doctor suddenly looked uncomfortable, and Sam sensed what was coming. “What?” he demanded. “What is it you ain't told me yet?”
“Mr. Prichard,” Doctor Schmidt began, “what you need to understand is that this is something that is beyond any degree of medical skill to repair...”
Sam held up a hand to stop him. “Just hold it,” he said, “just hold it. I get the feeling you're about to say something I don't wanna hear, and I want to take a minute and get myself ready, okay? You here with me, Danny?”
“Right here, Sam, I'm right here.”
Sam closed his eyes tightly for a couple of seconds, and then forced himself to take a deep breath and relax. He opened his eyes again and looked at Doctor Schmidt.
“Okay, go ahead, then,” he said.
Doctor Schmidt looked at him for a long moment, then sighed. “Mr. Prichard, the degree of damage to your acetabulum means that you will never walk normally again. Your right hip will have very limited range of motion, and simple things like normal running and jogging will be impossible to you. You will have difficulty with stairs, and will find ramps easier to handle. You will almost certainly need a cane a good part of the time, and that's even after physical therapy that will probably take a year or more. I'm afraid there is no possibility that you'll ever be able to return to active police work.”
Sam lay there for a long moment without saying a word, then turned to look at Dan Jacobs. “You hear this crap?” he asked, and Dan nodded.
“I heard it, Sammy.”
The two old friends looked at one another for a long time, and then Sam closed his eyes. The doctor left the room after a few moments more, and Dan lay there in silence, wondering how his friend was going to get through this one.
When morning came, Sam woke to find a whole new world being thrown at him. No sooner than breakfast was over, he was suddenly invaded by four people from HR, who had all kinds of forms for him to sign.
“What we're doing,” said the guy in the fanciest suit, “is giving you full medical retirement, in accordance with the union's policies and procedures. That means that you'll get seventy-five percent of your current income for life, with bi-annual cost-of-living raises, and full medical coverage from now on, as well. We need you to understand that this is not disability income, and you may apply for state or federal disability income if you wish, but you would probably be denied because of your medical retirement income, so there isn't a lot of point.”
The lone woman in the group shoved the suit aside and got right in Sam's face, which wouldn't have been such a bad thing under other circumstances, since she was cute. “Now, we also need you to understand that you have to comply with the instructions of your physician, and that any failure to comply, such as refusal of medications or treatments, refusal of surgery or physical therapy, and similar issues, can result in the loss of your medical retirement certification and income, including your medical insurance coverage and...”
The four of them droned on for quite a while, but Sam caught the gist of it. As long as he cooperated and did what the nice doctors wanted him to do, he'd get paid to stay home and take it easy. Since he couldn't be a cop anymore, that was fine with him; maybe he could finally get the Corvette out and drive it. It would be months before he was out of the wheelchair anyway.
The suits also told him that they were paying for a nice new powered wheelchair, and would have someone build a ramp at his house, leading up to his front porch. The doors and such were already wide enough, and since he only lived on the bottom floor, it was no big deal. He'd manage, and when he was inside and no one could see him, he and that wheelchair wouldn't need to be such buddies all the time, anyway; what the docs didn't know wouldn't hurt Sam, he figured.
The only bad part of all of this was that he could no longer be a cop, which was all he'd ever wanted to be. He'd given most of his life to it in one way or another, even down to losing his wife over the job; if the truth were to be told, he didn't work
the double shifts as much for the money as for the love of the job, so he could only blame himself for Jeanie finding another set of arms to roll around in.
Without being a cop, Sam Prichard wasn't really all that sure who he was. He was told that he'd have to go to a therapy group once a week, some deal about how to cope when you're no longer on the force, so he figured he could let his feelings out there, some. He knew some guys didn't like to talk at those shindigs, but he wasn't gonna be one of them. He was losing a big part of his identity, and he needed help to cope with that, so he would take advantage of whatever was offered.
He was released from the hospital a little more than a week after being admitted and rushed into surgery, and he was surprised when Dan Jacobs and Agent Carlson were the ones to show up and drive him home. Dan would be on desk duty for another week or so, but Carlson had not been hurt; Sam was actually glad to see the little butthole.
“You ready to stop pretending to be hurt and get off your lazy rear end?” Carlson asked.
“Ready as I'm gonna be, I guess. Good of you guys to come help the hospital toss me out on my ear!”
Dan grinned. “Yeah, isn't it? But then, what are friends for?”
They helped him into the car, and drove him to his house. The new powered chair had been delivered there, and was waiting to be assembled in his garage, courtesy of his mom, who had met the truck there and opened the garage door so they could put it inside.
They opened the garage to get it out, but there was a hang-up. “The dang thing's still in the box, Ben,” Dan said. “What good is that gonna do you?”
Carlson, surprising Sam once again, pointed to the big toolboxes that stood over by the Vette. “I bet there's instructions,” he said. Sam and Dan looked at him like he'd grown a third ear. “What?” he shot back. “Look, maybe we're not Santa's elves, but we're not stupid, either! We can put it together, don't you think? What do you say, Jacobs, you in?”
Sam laughed at the look on Dan's face. “I'll tell you what,” he said. “If you guys'll stick around and help me get Franken Wheelie all put together, I'll order in pizza and a twelve pack o' beer. Deal?”
The guys accepted his offer, and the beast was together and working an hour later. That prompted a goofy session in which they each took turns driving it around the garage and the yard. That ran down the not-yet-fully charged battery, so by the time they were ready to take it inside the house, they had to push it, and then Sam had to plug it into the wall and let it charge overnight. Luckily, there was an outlet right next to his couch, which is where he ended up sleeping.
He could walk short distances with a cane, but the docs insisted he do so as little as possible. They didn't have to say it too often, because it hurt like hell every time he tried, and since he'd be doing a lot of it during physical therapy, he thought he'd save that pain for those days. Still, it meant he could get to the bathroom without “the Monster,” as he called the powered chair, and that was a good thing. Big mother wouldn't even fit through the bathroom door!
Once he was home, things began to settle in for him. He had some money put back, so he bought himself a used minivan, an old Chevy Astro, and had a ramp built into the back end of it so he could putt right inside and then get into the driver's seat and go wherever he needed to go. The ramp would fold down to let him get in and out, and fold up so he could close the doors and drive, so it was a pretty good setup. Of course, the only places he ever went were to physical therapy and group sessions, the grocery store, the parts store, and out to eat now and then.
After three months, the docs said he could give up the wheelchair and start walking around with the cane. It still hurt, but like they said, the pain was a sign that he was getting stronger and making improvement, so he parked the electric scooter in the garage and went to walking, He still liked the van, though; for some reason, sitting up higher in it was easier than getting in and out of a car would be, so he didn't trade it off like he'd planned.
At six months, he was starting to walk around a bit without the cane, and that's when he broke down and bought himself a motorcycle. His legs were strong enough to hold him up at stoplights, and it was something he'd always enjoyed but never felt he had time for, so this was his chance. It felt good, and he noticed that he was even being checked out by some girls now and then.
His bike wasn't a Harley, but that didn't seem to matter to the girls. His old Honda Shadow, a sort of “Harley wannabe,” got some attention as he rode it around town, and now and then, he'd even get to talk to a girl at a stop light. Once, a girl pulled up beside him and said absolutely nothing, but hurriedly dug out a piece of paper and scribbled a number on it. She handed it to him, held her hand to her face as if it were a phone and mouthed the words, “Call me!” as she drove away.
You sure don't get that on a powered wheelchair, he said to himself. Should have bought a motorcycle sooner!
He tucked the number into his shirt pocket, and found it later that evening when he was getting ready to shower. He looked at the name, Judy, thinking about how long it had been since he'd even been on a date, then grabbed his phone and called.
“Hi,” he said when a feminine voice answered. “Is this Judy? You gave me your number today, and this is the first chance I've had to give you a—yes, on the motorcycle, that was me, yeah. Well, I would have called sooner, but I've been pretty busy today. What do I do? Well, I, um, I'm a retired cop, but I'm still called in sometimes as a, as a consultant! When they have a big case, y'know, sometimes I get called in to give my opinion about certain parts of it. Why am I retired? Oh, that's because I got shot a while back, and they gave me a medical retirement. I've got a bad leg, so I can't run like you have to when you take the police physical and such. Yeah, it's rough, but I'm a survivor. Well, I was thinking that if you wanted to, we could maybe go for a ride this Saturday? I love to ride up into the mountains, just get some clear mountain air, y'know? You would? That'd be great, Judy! Sure, I can pick you up there! Ten AM, that's perfect! I'll see you then!”
Saturday morning saw Sam out on the bike a little before ten, spare helmet strapped onto the sissy bar and ready to go out with a woman for the first time in more than three years. He climbed on and rode to Judy's house, over on the west end of Aurora. She saw him ride up and came running out, wearing a nice light leather jacket and some of the tightest jeans he'd ever seen spray painted onto a woman!
“Hi, Judy,” he said, and she rushed up and kissed him full on the mouth. “Oh,” she said, “I have been going nuts waiting for you to get here! Do you know how long it's been since I was on a motorcycle? Oh, god, I think it's been at least five years, and that is just too long! I've been dying to get back on one for so long!”
She climbed on, and they took off, riding up 225 until it hit I-70, then following the Interstate west into the foothills of the Rockies. They rode for about four hours, and stopped at Aspen for lunch, visiting the historic Woody Creek Tavern for their famous tilapia tacos. Sam was ready to sit and rest a bit, his hip giving him fits for spending so much time on the bike—he hadn't really ridden into the mountains before—but Judy was ready to go again as soon as lunch was over.
Sam stalled as long as he could, then forced himself to smile as he got the bike fired up again. When he got her back home and dropped her off, Judy invited him to come in and stay a while, but he begged off and said he'd call her the next day.
He never called her again.
Another woman he met on the bike was Kathy, a short blonde who said she was a little afraid of motorcycles, but that she did like to have a thrill, now and then. He made a date with her for one evening that weekend, and she nervously climbed on and clung to him for half an hour as he cruised her around the city. She laughed in his ear at how much fun it was, and when he offered to buy her dinner, she asked if they could just go to one of the outdoor eateries, so he chose the Appaloosa Grill, one of the more refined patio dining experiences in Denver. She sat and talked with him for a couple of hours, and Sa
m was actually beginning to think he might want to date her again. He said so, and that was when she told him that she really enjoyed the ride, but she just didn't feel a connection to him, that going out with him felt more like hanging out with a brother than going on a date. He smiled and told her he understood, and took her home as soon as he got the chance.
He came to the conclusion that motorcycle dates weren't all they were cracked up to be, and stopped paying a lot of attention to the girls who flirted when he was on two wheels.
Sam was settled into the life of the medically retired cop. He tinkered with his car, tinkered with his bike, watched a lot of TV and Netflix, and tried not to think too much or too often about what Dan was doing, or his old team. Dan had come by a few times, but nobody wants to hang out with the guy who has cancer, and being forced into retirement was like having the big C to cops who were still on active duty. Sam couldn't blame him for not coming by anymore. He'd even stopped calling, finally, and Sam was sort of glad. It was too hard to find things to talk about that weren't connected to the old days.
He'd given up on all of those past hopes and dreams. That was why it was such a shock when he got dragged back into cop work once again.
2
The big Honda thumped underneath him and made him feel alive, sometimes, and he knew that his neighbors all watched as he rode it in and out of his garage. Some of the women flirted a bit, but he'd let it be known that he didn't flirt with his neighbors’ wives, and so they made sure it was all in fun, and always right in front of their husbands.
He knew most of the neighbors, lately, because when the news about his shooting had gotten out, a lot of them had come over to tell him that they appreciated his service, and to offer any help he might need. He'd swallowed his pride and thanked them, even though offers of help only reminded him that he might need it, now, and that hurt worse than anything.