True to the Game III (4 page)
“No, it’s because I can’t move my legs and I’d rather be dead than paralyzed.”
Amelia couldn’t help but smile. He was an asshole. “You’re a bitch, you know that?”
“I’m a bitch? I didn’t know doctors called their patients bitches now days.”
“This one calls them like she sees them. You’re more than just a bitch; you’re a punk bitch. You bow down and suck up to the white man, but you treat me like shit.”
“What?”
“You’re one of them house niggas, aren’t you. You’ll pick up a gun, and you’ll aim it at another black man, but you’ll throw that bitch down and put ya hands up when the white man comes around.”
“Fuck you! You don’t know me! You don’t know shit about me, or who I am!”
Amelia nodded. “I know you. I know your type. Big bad brave man, tough with a gun. Quick with ya mouth. But when it really comes down to it, you ain’t shit. You ain’t a real built-to-last nigga. You’re a quitter and a coward.”
Quadir tried to sit up. “Bitch, you don’t know me! I ain’t nobody’s fucking coward!”
“Coward!”
Quadir sat up, clasped the bed rail, took his free hand, and swung his legs off the side of the bed.
“You want to know something, Quadir?”
“What?” Quadir snapped.
“A paralyzed man wouldn’t be able to sit up in bed.”
Quadir looked down and examined himself. He caught on to what she had done.
“You’re not a coward. You’re a fighter. The way you were going to come after me, that’s the same determination that you have to use to regain all your abilities. You have to fight for your life again. Fight to get it back! If you are counting on some medicine or some magic potion or formula to give it back to you, it ain’t going to happen. Sorry, brother, but nothing like that has been invented yet. You’re going to have to fight.”
“You should be a motivational speaker,” he said sarcastically.
“You should sell shit to mushroom farms, ’cause you’re really an asshole.”
Quadir laughed. She was sharp. He had tried her. Tried to push her buttons, disrespected her, doubted her even. But it was now obvious that she was the real deal.
“Do you want to walk again?” Amelia asked.
Quadir shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know.”
She had heard that answer before. She had done volunteer work the previous summer in Chad. Many soldiers had given her the same answer. Walk again for what? To go back out there and face a world that would still be just as hard, just as hostile to them? She knew where his answer was coming from.
“You don’t know, because what would change, huh? What would be different in the world if you went back out there again? Everything would be just the same, all of the bullshit would be exactly the same. Am I right?”
Quadir shifted his gaze toward her.
“One thing would be different. You. You would know that you took what the world threw at you, and you handled it. You get up, go back out there, and you smile at that fucked-up world, and you let it know that it didn’t defeat you. Let them know that they may have knocked you down, but that you got right back up. Let them know that you are a real soldier, a warrior for your people! You may encounter defeats, but you must not be defeated!”
“You’re quoting Maya Angelou now.”
Amelia recoiled slightly. She had been taken by surprise. “How did you know that?”
“I can read.”
“I’m shocked.”
“That I can read?”
“That you would know Maya. Most guys your age . . .”
“I guess we both made the mistake of prejudging each other.”
“I guess we did.”
Neal walked into the room pushing a wheelchair. “Wow, look at you sitting up!” He parked the chair next to Quadir’s bed and then helped him into it. “Be back in a while, doc.”
Amelia nodded.
Quadir stopped the chair just before they were about to exit and turned back toward her.
“No more prejudging each other?”
“No more prejudging each other.”
Neal looked at them strangely.
Quadir smiled and shook his head. “You’re a pain in the ass, doc. And that’s no prejudgment.”
Amelia threw her head back and laughed. “And you are an asshole, Mr. Smith. A bona fide asshole who’s full of shit.”
Quadir wheeled himself out of the room smiling.
A
melia strolled into the physical therapy room and spied Quadir in a nearby corner with Neal. Neal had Quadir lying on his back on a mat, while Neal was pushing his leg forward, shouting for Quadir to push. He had been in therapy for only a few days now, and results had been slow in coming. Quadir was not physically disabled. He was simply indifferent to trying. He acted as though he simply wanted to give up.
She approached and stood over him. “Lying on your ass again, huh?”
“Now is not the time for humor,” Quadir told her.
“Any time is a good time for humor. How’s he coming along, Neal?”
“If he would put as much effort into his therapy as he did into resisting it, he’d be ready to run a marathon right now.”
Amelia nodded. “So, what’s the deal, Quadir?”
“Ain’t no deal.”
“Push,” Neal ordered.
“I am pushing; can’t you tell?”
“You’re not pushing. I know that you got more in you than this. Hey, if you don’t want to walk, that’s your problem. I can’t make you walk.”
“Then why don’t you just leave me alone. I was fine lying in my bed watching TV. You came and got me, remember?”
“A regular wiseass,” Neal said, peering up at Amelia.
“I already know.”
“Aren’t you like a surgeon or something?” Quadir asked. “Shouldn’t you be somewhere cutting somebody open, and charging them an arm and a leg for it?”
“Neal, let me take over for a little while,” Amelia told him.
Neal nodded. He was happy to be rid of Quadir Richards, if only for today. “Be my guest, please!”
“Hang close, I’m going to need you to help me get him into his chair.”
“I’ll be right across the room if you need me,” said Neal.
Amelia turned to Quadir. “I thought that we had this conversation already.”
“And what conversation is that?”
“The conversation about you being a quitter.”
“We didn’t converse. You talked; I listened.”
“Funny. So are you going to be a coward and just give up?”
“I thought you said that I wasn’t a coward?”
“All quitters are cowards.”
“Kenny Rogers said that you got to know when to fold ’em.”
“So, your life is a game of cards now?”
“Life has always been nothing but one big gamble.”
“So you fold, huh? Gonna go back to your room, cash in all of your chips, and call it quits? I wish I would have known you were a quitter before. I wouldn’t have wasted my time.”
“Why did you?”
“Because I saw a man who wouldn’t quit! Because I saw a man who refused to give up, a man who refused to die! I thought you were a fighter.”
“It’s real easy to stand there and judge somebody! You haven’t been through what I’ve been through!”
“Oh, you poor baby! You got shot. So the fuck what! So now what are you going to do? Are you going to get back on the goddamned bike, or what?”
“What?”
“You heard me! What are you going to do, Quadir? When little kids get a boo boo, they get up, dust themselves off, get back out there, and keep going. What are you going to do, little boy? ’Cause frankly, just about everybody in here is tired of your whiney attitude. It’s time to either shit or get off the pot!”
Quadir went for his wheelchair. He pulled it close, put the brakes on it, and then pulled himself up onto it. The therapists in the room clapped when he was finished. Quadir looked at Amelia as if he wanted to kill her.
“I don’t need your fucking help! Yours and nobody else’s!”
“You owe these people in here more than that! You owe them more than your scorn. You owe a whole lot of people some goddamned effort!”
“Everyone keeps telling me what I owe. Everyone keeps telling me how grateful I should be, how good of a goddamned doctor you are, but you know what? I can’t see it! All I see is a fucking pain in the ass!”
“You fucking quitter. If you don’t believe that you owe these people who have spent all of their time taking care of you, trying to get you better, then maybe I can take you to somebody who you do think you owe something to!”
Amelia grabbed Quadir’s chair, turned him around, and pushed him out the room. She headed down the hall, out of the therapy ward, around a few corners, and into the chapel.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Quadir asked.
“When’s the last time you sat and prayed, Quadir?”
“I prayed the other night.”
“You should pray every day.”
“Don’t tell me what I need to do. What are you, a priest
and
a doctor?”
“If I were a priest, I would drown your ass in some holy water.”
Quadir smiled.
“Someone wants to see you. Since you don’t feel like you owe any of us any effort, then maybe you’ll try to get better for her.” Amelia pushed him all the way into the chapel.
A woman rose from her knees, turned, and smiled at him.
“Mom!” Quadir’s eyes flew open wide with amazement and surprise.
Viola’s tears flowed, as she rushed to him.
“Baby!” She leaned forward and embraced her son tightly. “You really are alive. Thank you, Lord! Thank you!”
She pulled Amelia close and hugged her. “Thank you so much! Thank you for saving my baby!”
“Now we just have to get your baby to want to save himself,” Amelia told her.
“What do you mean?” Viola asked.
“Tell her, Quadir.”
“Tell me what?” Viola said as she shifted back and forth between the two of them. “What’s going on, Quadir?”
Quadir smacked his lips. “Nothing; she’s just crazy, that’s all.”
“Quadir, Amelia has been over to my house many times since we’ve met.”
“What?” Quadir recoiled.
Amelia smiled at him.
“And she may be many things, but one thing she is not is crazy. What is going on?”
“Do you want to tell her, or should I?” Amelia asked looking at Quadir.
“Do what you want; you’ve been doing it anyhow.”
Viola could see her son’s attitude and placed her hand on her hip as she looked down on him.
“Quadir here has given up.” Amelia told her.
“What?”
“Yep, he’s thrown in the towel. Doesn’t want to try in therapy, just wants to sit back and eat Jell-O and watch television.”
“No, that’s not my son. My son is a not a quitter. My baby’s a fighter!”
The two women stared at Quadir in silence. He could feel their eyes on him.
“Quadir . . .” Viola started off.
“Okay, okay!”
“Okay what?” Amelia asked. “You admit to your mother that you’re a quitter, or okay, you’re not going to let her down and be a quitter.”
Quadir peered up at her and rolled his eyes at Amelia. She was the most nerve-racking woman he had ever met.
“Baby, I want you to walk out of this hospital on your own two feet,” Viola told him. “I want you to hurry up and get well and get outta this place.”
Quadir nodded.
“His gunshot wounds are healing rather well,” Amelia explained. “He has one that I left open, because of infection. We pack it twice a day, and we’ve been giving him antibiotics for it. I want it to close up on its own. It’ll leave only a slightly larger scar than if we had sewn it up. But he’s coming along rather nicely.”
Viola caressed Quadir’s head and nodded.
“We just need for him to give us some effort, so we can get him walking.”
“I’m sore and it hurts like hell!” Quadir told her.
“Just try, baby. Do it for me. Just promise me that you’ll try,” Viola pleaded.
Quadir nodded. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
“Good.” Amelia smiled. “Well, I’ll leave you two alone so that you can catch up. I’ll be back in, say . . . thirty minutes?”
“Thank you so much, Amelia,” Mrs. Richards leaned forward and kissed her on her cheek.
Amelia turned and left the chapel.
“How’s Gena doing?” Quadir asked.
“She’s doing good. She’s just fine.”
“Where is she? Why didn’t she come here with you?”
“Baby, after this happened to you, I didn’t trust nobody. I decided it be best and I let her think you were dead.”
“What? That’s Gena! Why would you do that?”
“Baby, I know. But it was for your own safety.”
“My safety? She didn’t shoot me!”
“Listen, I didn’t even tell your father and no I didn’t tell her. Do you know what could happen if Gena finds out you’re alive? Do you understand that Amelia put her entire medical career on the line to help protect you? If Gena knew you were alive, the entire city would know. There’s no way she could keep this kind of secret. Please trust us, trust me, and trust Dr. Hopkins. Don’t worry about Gena. You just go ahead and get well. I want you to walk out of this place, then go get your precious Gena and get the hell outta Philly.”
“Get outta Philly? Where’s Rik? Where’s Rasun?”
“Baby, you can worry about them after you get better! But, son, you got to understand, you’re a ghost to these people. To them, you don’t exist.”
Quadir nodded. “I want to see Gena.”
“I know you do. I know, son, but she’s fine; she’s tough, and she can handle herself until you get yourself together and figure out where to go from here with your life.”
Quadir thought about his money. He knew he had been out of it for weeks. He knew that rent needed to be paid, mortgages needed to be paid, and all his other bills had to be taken care of.
“I need you to take care of a few things for me.”
“What?”
“I need you to pay some bills for me.”
“I already took care of all that, Quadir.”
“All of them?”
Viola nodded. She thought that she had in fact taken care of all her son’s bills, not knowing he had many others she knew nothing about, one important one in particular.
“Quadir, I’ve taken care of everything. You just relax, do your therapy, son, and get better. Okay, baby?”
Quadir nodded. He would do as she said. He would focus and he would hurry up and get the hell out of that hospital. Either that or he was going to catch a case for killing Dr. Hopkins.