[To Die For 01] - A View to Die For (2012) (3 page)

“Hello?” I asked. It was too dark to see the caller ID.

“What? No ESP?” she replied.

“Not tonight, Mom. What’s up? Is it Dad?”

“No, Jacob. I called to tell you not to worry about your nephew. Kevin went on to his friend’s house when you didn’t show up.”

“Give me a break, Mom. I’m trying my best. I got lost up by Independence and now its pitch black with deer jumping out all over, and I’ve got some crazy idiot trying to pass me on a hill.”

“Anyway, here’s Taylor’s address,” she said as though she never heard my plea for mercy. “You’ll have to go there to get the key,”

“Can you text me the address, Mom?”

“Jacob, you know I don’t know how to do that. Let me give you the address and number. Do you have something to write on?”

“Mom, are you trying to kill me? I’m on a road that Evil Kinevil wouldn’t try. And there is some nut behind me who is trying to run me off the road. What is it with these Missouri drivers anyway. I’ll call you when I get to town. It’s only another ten miles or so.”

I hung up just in time to see the deer. “Shit,” I exclaimed, turning the wheel hard left to avoid the creature. That’s when the jerk behind me decided to pass and hit the rear of my van. The impact sent me into a spin toward the other side of the road. My van flew over the ditch and was headed toward a large tree. Then everything went totally dark.

“Am I in heaven?” I asked the angel standing over me when I woke. I had to be in heaven. She was the prettiest woman I had ever seen who wasn’t in a magazine or on television. She had midnight-black hair and beautiful violet-blue eyes. All she needed to complete the picture was a pair of wings. But her ID badge confirmed she was human; you can’t photograph angels.

“More like purgatory. You’ve been in an accident,” she said, quickly glancing at a monitor to my right. “The doctor left orders to call him when you woke up. I’ll be right back.”

My angel returned within minutes alongside a guy in a ponytail. I assumed he was an orderly. “Mr. Martin, I’m Doctor Woodward. You have no idea how lucky you are to be alive. Do you remember what happened?”

By now I was fully awake and realized what had happened to me. “How about Fred? Is he okay?” I asked.

“Fred? Who’s Fred?” he asked.

“My dog. Do you know where he is?”

My angelic nurse spoke up when she saw the blank look on the doctor’s face. “I heard something about the sheriff taking him to the vet in Truman. I’ll give the office a call and see how he’s doing.”

Ponytail cut in before I could thank my angel. “Do you remember anything about the accident?”

“Kind of,” I replied, “One minute I’m enjoying the roller coaster ride while talking to my mother, and the next thing I know a deer is trying to mate with my van, all while some idiot is trying to pass me. I almost hit the poor thing.”

“Your mother? Was she in the van with you?” My angel asked. I could hear the worried tone in her voice. I didn’t think angels were supposed to worry.

“No. On the phone, I meant. I was talking to my mother on the cell just before the accident. Just Fred and I were in the van. God, I hope he’s okay. Please let me know as soon as you hear something from the vet.”

“There was another car involved?” It was the doctor again. I was starting to wonder if he was some kind of cop in disguise. He seemed more concerned with the details of the accident than my vitals.

“The jerk clipped me when he tried to pass. That’s what caused me to run off the road.”

“I’m sure Sergeant Bennet would like to hear about the other car. People like that shouldn’t be allowed to drive. Well, In the meantime, you need to get some rest,” he said. “You had a mild concussion. I’d like to keep you overnight. You should be out of here in the morning.”

They moved me out of intensive care and into a room with three other patients. It seems billing had already checked on my insurance. My online discount policy wouldn’t pay for much more than a barracks and some aspirin. I had been awake for some time when my angel appeared early next morning. “How are you feeling this morning?” she asked while closing the privacy curtain around my bed.

“Got a splitting headache, but I’ll live. Did you talk to the vet?”

She had moved to the other side of my bed to check my urine bag. “Don’t worry. He was a little stiff at first, but he is doing great now. He perks up and starts wagging his tail every time he hears a man’s voice. He must think it’s yours.” She reached under the thin blanket and began adjusting my catheter. “Would you rather I call an orderly to do this?” she asked, too late.

“No. But now I think we have to get married,” I laughed.

She replaced the blanket and smiled at me. “Do you feel up to any visitors yet, or do you need more rest?”

“Visitors?”

“I believe he said he’s your nephew.”

“Kevin?” I asked.

“Uh huh. His earrings remind me of my own son.”

Her remark about earrings didn’t surprise me. Every generation seemed to have its way of rebelling. “Sure”, I said. Send him in.” I had not seen Kevin since he went to live with his father when he was eight or nine. He’d been in and out of trouble since then, and when he got busted at twelve with marijuana, his father quickly sent him back to Megan.

It wasn’t five minutes later when the curtain slid open again. It must have been Kevin, but I didn’t recognize him. “Uncle Martin?” he asked.

I stared at him thinking,
who is this kid
? Not only did he have holes in his ears the size of quarters, he had every conceivable loose piece of skin on his face pierced and ringed. I felt like grabbing the ring in his nose and pulling as hard as I could. Then I heard my mother’s voice in my head, telling me not to judge a book by its cover.

“How you doing, Uncle Martin?”

“That sounds like a line from an old TV show. Call me Jake, okay? Sorry if I didn’t recognize you. Maybe it’s the Mohawk. I don’t think I ever saw a Mohican with red and purple hair.”

“Cool, huh. You should see how it freaks out all these old farts,” he answered.

“Is your grandmother here, Kevin?”

“Na. Just me, Uncle Martin. Grandma’s at the reception with Mom and Grandpa. They sent me to fetch you.”

“Your mother is out of jail? And what do you mean the reception?” I felt like Woody Allen in
Bananas
. Life, it seemed, had gone on without me and passed me by.

“Yeah. That fancy lawyer you hired got them to drop all the charges,” he said. “Mom didn’t waste any time putting Mike’s urn in the ground, and now all the old people in town are over at grandma’s eating her food.”

Megan had told me Kevin never took to Mike so his attitude toward his deceased step-father didn’t surprise me. “Damn. So much has happened in the last day. How is your grandfather doing?”

“He’s cool.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, Kevin?”

We were interrupted before Kevin could answer. It was my doctor. “You look a lot better than the last time I saw you. How are you feeling this morning?”

“Great,” I lied, hoping for a quick release from the hospital. My head was throbbing. “This is my nephew, Kevin. He’s here to take me home.”

“You’re a lucky man, Mr. Martin. No broken bones or lingering concussion. How’s your leg? Do you think you can walk on it?”

“Ready for the Boston marathon,” I answered, “if you let me out of here.”

“Okay then. I would like to do another CT scan in a couple of weeks, but otherwise, I see no reason not to let your nephew take you home.”

My wallet and cell phone were not in my room, so I stopped off at admissions on the way out. They had my phone, but they had no idea about my wallet. It must have been their way of ensuring I didn’t get away without the requisite paperwork, so they could bill me for services that my insurance company didn’t pay. “That doesn’t make any sense,” I told the clerk who checked me out. “How did you know what insurance I have? You must have seen my insurance card, and my card was in my wallet.”

The girl just looked at me like I had asked a Daily Double
Jeopardy
question. She was preoccupied with her desktop printer; it had jammed in the middle of printing my pardon. She was saved from answering when her supervisor showed up. “I believe the sheriff has your wallet, Mr. Martin. He asked me to tell you he would like to see you as soon as you are released.” Then without another word to me, she turned toward the clerk. “Sue, switch over to the backup printer until someone can fix yours.” And she was gone as quickly as she had appeared.

The clerk kept Kevin busy gawking at her until she got up to retrieve the printout. She was young – about his age – with a gold stud in her nose. “I gotta go out and have a smoke, Uncle Martin,” he said after she disappeared into the back room.

I started to watch my nephew light up in the no-smoking area right outside the entrance lobby when I saw my nurse again. She was arguing with an older man; he had parked at the entrance to pick her up. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he seemed to be upset. He slammed the passenger door before she barely had settled into the SUV. It was a very expensive Mercedes; the kind that would cost me a year’s salary when I had been gainfully employed.

“Sorry it took so long, Mister Martin,” said Sue, the admissions clerk. She had returned with my release form while I had been watching the show outside.

“No problem,” I said and folded the printout, so it would fit in my shirt pocket. Then I smiled at her, trying not to stare at her nose, and left to join Kevin.

“Wonder what that’s all about?” I asked my nephew.

He took a final drag on his cigarette before flicking it on the ground, despite the several sand-filled cigarette cans behind him. It was clearly marked with the icon of a crossed-out circle and a smoking cigarette. “That’s my friend Taylor’s dad. She must be his mom,” he answered, starting off toward the parking lot.

“You know her?” I asked, trying to keep up.

“Na. Not ‘till now. Taylor said she was a nurse, but I never seen her before. She’s never home when Taylor and me hang at his place. But his dad’s really cool.” I barely heard him. He was several yards ahead of me when he stopped at a beat-up junker parked in a handicap spot close to the entrance.

We had to drive the thirty-some miles from Clinton to Truman in Kevin’s ‘92 Ford Tempo. He said how my van was not going anywhere but the scrap heap, so he would be my wheels as long as I needed. I knew I would be looking elsewhere for a car, or I had to at least learn to ride a bicycle again, assuming we made it to Meg’s house. He sped along the same road that had made me a god-fearing man.

The Tempo’s air conditioning was blowing hot air. Nothing happened when I pressed the window’s down-button. “Sorry Uncle Martin, that button don’t work. I gotta lower it for you.”

The July air hit my face, hot and humid, with an occasional bug or two, but it felt great. The temperature in the car had risen to well over one hundred.

“Did Mike have a nice service?” I asked, catching a breath of the moist air blowing into the car.

“I guess. Me and Grandpa missed most of it. He started hacking, so I got elected to take him out back.”

It sounded like my father was back to smoking his two packs a day. “Maybe the tar from the cigarettes will patch the hole in his lung,” I said.

Kevin must have missed out on the family’s sarcasm gene. He gave me a blank look then turned his attention back to his driving, just before nearly rear-ending a slower car in front of him. After giving the other driver a one-finger salute in his rear-view mirror, he turned toward me again. “What you going to tell the cops, Uncle Martin?”

“Haven’t given it much thought, Kevin. If it wasn’t for my wallet, I’d make them wait. I really want to check on Fred first, but I’ll need money to pay his bill. And please. I’m not a Martian – call me Jake.”

“Huh.” he said, his expression going blank again. Either I was showing my age by referring to the old sixties television show,
My Favorite Martian
, or my nephew had some kind of synaptic short circuit.

Except for asking Kevin to slow down every few minutes, we didn’t talk much the rest of the trip. He was too busy practicing his stockcar skills, and I was trying to second-guess the sheriff. I couldn’t imagine why he wanted to see me. We then passed the accident scene, and I almost freaked out. “Pull over, Kevin!” I yelled.

“Here? There ain’t no friggin place to pull over!”

“Then slow down for Christ sake. Okay, pull over by that bridge.” There was a scenic turnout right before the bridge crossed the lake. Kevin and I got out of the Tempo and started following some tire tracks back to where my van had jumped the ditch. The tow truck must have come this way to get my van. I hobbled after my nephew who was yards ahead of me. Then I saw tracks leading toward a big oak tree, and another set that hadn’t been so lucky. I slid down the bank to where my van had been stopped by the tree, only yards from the edge of a steep bluff. From there it was straight down to the water. The other tire tracks went right up to the edge and disappeared.

“Wow, this is the same place Mike ate his lunch,” Kevin said when I caught up with him. “Kind of weird, huh.”

“Very weird. I wonder what the odds are that I almost dined here too.”

He turned away from the water and looked at me blankly. Then the light went on. “Oh, I get it, Uncle Martin. You meant ate your lunch, too.”

“Something like that,” I answered while looking past him, toward the road. Several cars had gone by in the time it took us to reach the accident scene, and now one of them was slowing down to watch us. I waved at him even though I hadn’t a clue who he was. The driver waved back then sped up.

“What’s weird, Kevin, are those tracks by the road.”

“Think they were Mike’s, Uncle Martin?”

“No. Mike’s tracks go straight to the water. Those tracks parallel the road.”

“Must have been the ambulance,” he said.

Or the people who nearly killed me
, I thought and started back toward the Tempo.

Kevin stopped the Tempo at a bank a block from the county jail. He didn’t really park the car, nor did he turn off his motor. The bank’s thermometer read ninety-nine – and that was in the shade. Compared to the sauna Kevin called a car, it felt great when I stepped out on the sidewalk. “I ain’t going nowhere near that jailhouse,” Kevin said, still sitting in the car. “You can call my cell when you need me.” And then he took off without giving me his cellphone number.