Crazy (18 page)

It would be so nice to believe her, but now that she's here and my dad's coming down on a stretcher on his way to the hospital and out of my life, I don't see how anything will be all right, ever again. Is he going to die? I can't lose him; I just can't. And if he gets better, then what? Where will the doctors put him to heal his mind? Will it ever heal? And where will I go? Now that I've called Dr. Gomez, I have no control over anything anymore; yet all I keep saying is that we have no money. We can't pay.

The two men carrying my dad reach the bottom steps and Dr. Gomez lets go of me and opens the door for them. She tells them to take him to the Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, and then she looks at me. "You'd better go, too. You feel quite feverish and you look exhausted."

I shake my head. I try to protest again, but she grabs my arm. "Jason, let go. It's going to be all right. They take people at the center without insurance. It's okay now. It's all going to be okay."

A policeman calls to me from the sidewalk. "Son, do you need help getting into the ambulance?"

I want to ride with Dad, so I agree to go and let a doctor look at me. I grab the keys to the house and glance about me before I leave. Already the living room looks abandoned and even strange, like it's no longer a part of me. Its cold silence warns me that the next time I see this house, everything will have changed. My life and my dad's life will be totally different. When I close this door, this chapter of my life will be over.

Thank goodness I have my friends, Crazy Glue and Sexy Lady and Fat Bald Guy and Aunt Bee. Thank goodness I have You—or I'd truly be all alone.

T
HEY DRUGGED ME LAST NIGHT
. What right did they have to do that?

AUNT BEE
:
You were a wild man. You kept kicking the nurse and trying to get off the gurney. They had to do something.

Well, he wouldn't let me stay with Dad.

AUNT BEE
:
You shouldn't have kicked him. Your father needed better care than you. He has a heart arrhythmia. That can be serious.

They shouldn't have drugged me. Anyway, they said it was just dehydration causing the arrhythmia. He's going to be fine. It's just a stomach flu.

FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
:
And you're both malnourished and seriously exhausted. Most nights you barely sleep.

Whose side are you on here? I wouldn't have brought you along if I'd known you all were going to attack me.

AUNT BEE
:
Nobody's attacking you, Jason. Calm down. Your anger is way out of proportion. We're all on your side. We're just trying to make you see reason.

Are you saying I'm not reasonable? Are you saying I can't reason? Do you think
I'm
crazy? Huh? Well I
might just drop the lot of you. Forget you, Aunt Bee! Forget all of you. Who needs you? I don't. I don't need anybody.

CRAZY GLUE
:
You're acting like a baby.

I don't care.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Whaa-whaa-whaa! Now we're going to pout.

Back off!

I look across the room at the clock. It's one o'clock. I've slept past lunch. I see a tray of brown mushy food on a table to my left and on my right is a light blue curtain. Maybe Dad's on the other side. "Hello? Dad?"

I struggle to a sitting position. "Dad, is that you?"

"Uh, are you talking to me? I'm Marshall," a kid's voice says.

"Oh, sorry." I rub my head. I swallow. My mouth feels dry. I'm lightheaded, too. When I turn my head from right to left, the room kind of floats around me. I test this a few times, turning my head to the two large windows on my left and then to the curtain, then to the windows, and back to the curtain. I feel nauseated.

CRAZY GLUE
:
So stop doing that, dumb-dumb.

Well who cares if I'm dizzy? I'm not gonna sit in this bed all day waiting for a doctor. I'm going to go find my dad.

I start to get up and I hear a knock on the door. I wait for Marshall to say something.

"Can I come in?" It's a man's voice.

I figure it's one of Marshall's relatives. The kid doesn't say anything, though, so I shrug and say, "Sure, come on in. I think he's asleep, though."

A man, youngish, maybe in his late twenties or early thirties and looking like he lifts weights, with his thick neck and stocky build, comes from around the curtain, strides over to my bed, and shoots out his hand to shake mine. "Hi there, Jason. I'm Sam Waldron."

LAUGH TRACK
:
Uh-oh!

"Oh. Yeah. Hi."

Okay, I figured I'd have to face this man sometime; I just didn't expect it to be so soon. I sit up straighter. I want to bolt and I guess the thought shows on my face, because Sam sets his big solid hand on my shoulder and says, "I'm just here to help you, Jason, that's all. Family Services' goal is to fix it so that eventually you and your father are living together on your own without any interference from us. That's what we're after. Believe me, the fewer people who need our help, the better for everybody. Okay?"

Sam doesn't wait for an answer from me. He looks around for a chair, finds one across the room, and brings it over beside my bed. He sits on the edge of the chair and leans forward. He looks straight at me. His eyes are gray, like my dad's. "Here's the plan, Jason. The hospital wants to release you tonight, which means you need a place to stay."

CRAZY GLUE
:
No shit, Sherlock!

I cross my arms, wincing a little. They've removed my improvised sling and haven't yet replaced it. "I'm staying with my dad," I say.

Sam nods. "I understand you would like to stay with him, but just listen a minute. Your father's not likely to be going anywhere for the next couple of days. Then—"

"Then I'm staying here, with him."

Sam raises his hand. "Then," he repeats, this time with more emphasis, "your father will be evaluated, both physically and mentally, at which time a decision will be made as to the best care for him."

"And what about me? What happens to me in your big plans?" I point at the file he's holding. It's a thin file, so I assume it's ours—mine and Dad's—two new people entered into the system.

"We'll place you, temporarily, in the home of another family member, or friend, or—"

I interrupt again. "Do you think we'd even be in this situation if we had family somewhere? I don't have any family. They all died off, or they live in Greece."

"Or," he says, again with emphasis, "we'll find you a temporary foster home."

I feel dizzy, so I slouch down in my bed more so that I can rest my head on a pillow. "I don't know why I can't stay with my dad. What's so wrong with me staying with him, here?"

Sam looks me in the eyes again. He does it like he's practiced this—this deep stare. I don't like it. I look away.

"Jason, what kind of care do you feel your father needs?"

I shrug and study my hands. I notice my fingernails look really dirty in this bright, clean hospital room. "I don't know," I say. "I just want things to be the way they were—the way they used to be."

"And what way was that?" Sam asks, setting his elbows on his knees.

I look out the windows at some distant church steeple and ask myself honestly what Dad needs, and my answer is my mom. Everything would be okay if Mom were here. She was the one who could always make Dad better again. She was the one who could draw him out of his study and get him to join us on trips to the zoo or picnics in the dead of winter along the C&O canal. She was the one who could get Dad to laugh, and even though Dad was the writer, she was the one with all the stories, the memories—about how they met, about their first years of marriage, about me.

AUNT BEE
:
There you go. You're remembering your mother. That wasn't so hard, was it?

I feel a sudden burning in my chest. I swallow, thinking I can get rid of the feeling that way, but it only intensifies. I press the heel of my hand against my
chest and take a deep breath. Then I turn back to Sam. "I think my dad just needs to see my mom again."

"Okay," Sam says, nodding. "But that's not very realistic, is it? Don't you think you and your father deserve to build a good life without her?"

"What is this?" I explode. "Everybody's ganging up on me! I'm not realistic? You think I'm not realistic? Like I'm crazy, too? Is that what you think? I
know
my mom's dead. Okay? I
know
she's not ever coming back. I know that! Don't you think I know that?"

Sam has jumped out of his chair. "Okay, calm down. It's all right. It's all right. Nobody thinks you're crazy." He puts his thick arm around my shoulder and does this sideways hug thing so my head is mashed against his rib cage.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Yeah, goob. Calm down already. You're freaking me out, man.

I pull away from Sam. "I'm okay. I'm calm. You can sit down now. I'm not going to do anything."

"Of course you're not," he says, but he doesn't sit. Instead he takes the file he left in the chair and tucks it under his arm.

CRAZY GLUE
:
That file's gotta reek!

"Listen, Jason—I'm going to come back around dinnertime to pick you up. By then we'll have your living arrangements all figured out. I promise, everything will work out fine. You'll see. Now, are you willing to go with me?"

"Do I have a choice?" I cross my arms again and look out the windows. I see a gaggle of geese flying past the steeple.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Freedom.

"Yes, you do. You can go with me willingly, with the intention of making the best of a difficult situation, or you can go unwillingly and make yourself and everyone around you miserable."

CRAZY GLUE
:
Where'd they find this bozo?

I don't say anything, and after a moment Sam pats my shoulder, tells me he'll see me later, and leaves.

I'm down in my dad's hospital room. The doctor came to see me for all of five seconds after Sam left, and then a nurse came and put my arm in an official sling. She said it should heal in a couple of weeks.

Dad's asleep. He's got tubes and baggies and stuff hooked up to him, and the monitor by the bed beeps and burps now and then, letting me know he's still alive. They've shaved his beard off and he looks better—cleaner—but he's so thin, he barely makes a lump in the bed. I shake his shoulder. "Dad?" He stirs and smacks his chapped lips a few times.

I imagine him opening his eyes, recognizing me, and saying something wonderful, something that makes sense.

"Dad?"

He opens his eyes; it takes him a moment to focus
and see me. "This is bad news. I got static in the attic. Tell the boy." He closes his eyes. "The Furies..." He goes back to sleep.

I use my good arm to pull the covers to his chin. I feel his forehead; the fever is gone.

AUNT BEE
:
If only his mind were as easy to fix as his body.

I'm just glad he's alive. Really. At least he's alive. Right? That's the important thing. That's what we've all got to remember.

I notice his wrists are tied to the bed. My chest burns again. I feel like a complete failure. Why couldn't I fix him? What did I do wrong?

CRAZY GLUE
:
Maybe it's too much like the blind leading the blind.

Shut up! What does that mean? What do you all keep implying? Why don't you leave me alone? You're all turning against me. Where's Sexy Lady? Has she turned against me, too?

SEXY LADY
:
You're just so angry. Anger's not hot. Calm down, Jason. That's all we're saying.

I'm not angry. Why does everybody keep saying to calm down! I'm calm! I'm calm! Jeez! I'm calm already!

A nurse comes into the room, holding a set of sheets. She looks like someone's grandmother, a comfortable-looking kind of person, like Aunt Bee.

AUNT BEE
:
Oh dear, I think I look better than she does, don't you? Am I really that overweight?

"Well now, you'll be happy to know we'll be moving your father out of ICU later tonight if he behaves
himself and his heart rate remains stable. It converted on its own, so that's good news." She shakes her head. "He's a fighter, he is, just like his son, from what I hear." She smiles at me and I turn back to my dad. He looks so frail and vulnerable just lying with his mouth hanging open and his arms and legs tied down. Jeez, I hate this!

The nurse sets her sheets on the chair on the other side of the bed. "I'll take good care of your father; don't you worry."

She pushes on something with her foot and raises the bed.

I take Dad's hand in mine. It feels warm, a good kind of warm. "He doesn't know where he is. He's—he's..."

"Oh, I know all about it." The nurse nods. She grabs my dad's water pitcher and lifts the lid to peer inside. "We've got it all under control." She goes over to the sink and dumps out the water.

FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
: See.
It's all under control.

Yeah, and I'm calm and I'm not worried, and anyway, I wish everyone would stop telling me how to feel!

CRAZY GLUE
:
Aye-aye, sir!

Oh, shut up!

Dad sleeps all afternoon, so I sit by his bed and watch the TV. I don't want to think about anything. The
TV's good for that. Around five the nurse comes in and pulls out my IV thing that's still stuck in my hand, gives me my bag of clothes, and tells me I can get dressed. I do as I'm told. When I'm done, I sit back down beside my dad. I rest my arm on his shoulder and wait for Sam. The longer I wait, the sharper the pain in my chest gets. Maybe I'll have a heart attack and die. That would solve all my problems.

AUNT BEE
:
Maybe all your problems are over. Your father's being taken care of; you're being taken care of...

Why won't you all leave me alone! I don't want to think about it.

FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
:
Maybe you're ashamed because you feel a little relieved.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Or a lot relieved.

Relieved to lose my dad? To be going who knows where? No way! You all are the crazy ones.