Allegiance: A Jackson Quick Adventure (13 page)

“34 right?” I remember mumbling aloud. “Or is it 34 left?”

“34, 35, 24, 37,” mocked a voice behind me, followed by the laughter of two or three other people. “Baby Jacktard can’t remember how to open his locker!”

I didn’t turn around. I kept fumbling with the numbers and tugging on the lock. Finally it opened.

34
left
!

A large hand slammed into the locker door right next to my ear.

“It is Jacktard, right?” It was Blair Loxley. He was big and strong and mean.

I turned to face him. The top of my head came to his chin. There was something nasty in his eyes, and a story there I didn’t want to know.

Loxley’s pimpled face was pale and his hair was shoe polish black. He was broad shouldered with a muscular thickness that belied his age. I knew he’d repeated fourth and fifth grade, and was still much larger than most of the current eighth graders.

“I asked you a question,” he growled.

I glanced to his right side and saw the three other boys who’d been laughing their encouragement. I recognized one of them as a kid in my science class, but I’d never seen the other two. All three of them had their arms folded like bouncers protecting the entrance to a Sixth Street bar.

“I heard you,” I said, trying not to give away any sense of fear. I imagined he was like an animal that could sense any hint of it. “I thought you were talking to one of your stooges.”

I didn’t really know what the word
stooge
meant, though I knew enough about Larry, Curley, and Moe to understand it wasn’t a compliment.

“Stooges?” Loxley said, his tone making it apparent he’d come to the same conclusion. “You’re joking right?” He turned to look at his henchmen. “He’s joking right?”

They laughed and nodded. I didn’t say anything, just stared into those pained eyes of his.

“I’m not joking,” I said. I studied his face. I could feel my heart pounding against my chest now. I wasn’t going to back down, and I was sure this would not end well. An unfamiliar, involuntary strength, was coursing through me

“Neither am I!” he grunted as he dipped his right shoulder and elbowed me in the gut.

I felt all the air leave my body and I dropped to my knees, unable to catch my breath. I gasped for air, my chest burning, tears welling in my eyes. I tried to stand, but Loxley put his hands on my shoulders and held me down. He was telling the other boys to do something, but I was too focused on trying to breathe to understand him.

Two of the boys grabbed my arms, one at each elbow, and used their free hands to twist violently against the skin on my forearms. Indian burns.
Atomic
Indian burns.

It took everything in me to keep from screaming in pain. Instead of giving in, I squeezed my eyes shut and struggled against them. It only served to make the pain worse until I blindly lifted my right leg and kicked.

I didn’t connect with anything and so I kicked again. Kick. Kick. Kick. I must have seemed like an infant throwing a tantrum; eyes shut, tears streaming down my cheeks, legs flailing.

I felt another hard punch to the gut. My eyes popped open and I felt drool trailing from the corner of my mouth. I was out of air.

“Don’t do it again, Jacktard,” hissed Loxley. “Don’t resist me. Take what’s coming to you and shut up. If you tell anyone about this, the next time will be worse.”

He shoved his palm against my forehead, slamming it against my locker, then he led the two henchmen away.

I sunk to the floor quietly. My arms were on fire, my breath was slow to come back.

I was determined to get even.

“Future years will never know the seething hell and the black infernal background, the countless minor scenes and interiors of the secession war; and it is best they should not. The real war will never get in the books”

--WALT WHITMAN

“Jaaaacksonnnn?” The voice is muted but soft and sweet in my left ear. “Jaaaaacksonnnn, baaaaabyyyy? Cannn yoooo heeeearrrr meeeee?”

It’s Charlie. Her voice is breaking through the fog.

My eyes are closed and heavy. I can feel her hands wrapped around the fingers on my left hand, feel the slight squeeze.

“Jaaacksonnn?” she whispers. “He’s waking up.” She must be talking to someone else now.

I’m trying to open my eyes, trying to move and wake up.

Where
am
I
?

“He should be waking up soon,” says another woman’s voice. This one is gruffer, masculine in tone. “The sedative doesn’t last long.”

Sedative
?

I’m trying to move but can’t. I’m paralyzed.

Am
I
paralyzed
?

A distant beeping noise gets louder and faster.

“Hear the heart monitor?” It’s the man-woman voice again. “He’s waking up and his heart rate is quickening. He can probably hear us talking about him.”

“Should I keep talking to him?” Charlie asks, squeezing my hand again.

“Sure.”

“Jackson, baby,” she says, her voice soft again and closer to my ear, “you’re safe. You’re okay. You’re here in the hospital with me. Everything is going to be fine.”

Hospital
?
Hospital
!?

It all rushes back: the gun shot, the fight in the bathroom, the tunnel, the crash, Bobby’s blood, The Saint, the iPods…

The beeping, which had slowed, is again loud and fast. There’s an involuntary twitch in my left arm.

“Jackson, open your eyes. Try to open them a little,” Charlie says.

My eyes feel like they’re glued shut. Slowly, and with considerable effort, I’m able to open them. At first all I can see is white. As my pupils shrink, I can make out the fuzzy shape of Charlie sitting at my bedside. Apparently my head is turned to left, and she’s been talking to me in my right ear. I’m totally disoriented.

“Oh, Jackson, I was so scared.” She leans in and kisses my cheek. “They told me you were here, and I rushed to get here.”

I try to speak, but my mouth is dry and my lips seem cauterized. Against the scratch in my throat I whisper, “How did you find out?”

“How did I find out what?”

My focus is improving and I can see the furrow in her brow. Her red hair is pulled back in a ponytail and there are thick smudges of black under her eyes. Her nose is red.

“That I was here?”

“They said they found my number in your phone. You’d texted me or something. They called the last number dialed.”

She’s right. I did text her from the bus.

“How did I get here?” I lick my top lip slowly. My mouth is dry.

“Somebody dropped you off,” Charlie says. She reaches for a Styrofoam cup on the bedside table, dips a plastic spoon into it and shovels out some ice chips, which she scoops into my mouth. “This’ll help.”

I guess the look on my face betrays my confusion, because she continues to explain.

“Some guy pulled up into the ambulance bay right behind the emergency room entrance, found a wheelchair and put you in it. He wheeled you up to the nurses’ station and left. He didn’t say anything, just left you there with your head bleeding.” She scoops another spoonful of ice into my mouth.

“The doctors told me you had two bad cuts to the back of your head. They removed a couple of pieces of glass too. They said it looked like you’d been in a car crash. You also had a concussion.”

“I
was
in a car crash.” I clear my throat. “It was downtown.”

“Is that why the cop is here?” She looks past me toward what I guess is the hallway outside my room. I hadn’t looked that way yet.

Cop
?

“He’s been outside your room for an hour or two now,” she speaks softly again. “The doctors won’t let him in the room yet. They said he wants to talk to you.”

I twist myself to the right and shift my weight to the right side of my body. I’m tangled a little bit in the IV line that disappears into my right hand, but I manage.

Through the door to my room, I can see the hustle of the emergency nurses and doctors across the hallway. Sitting in a chair to the left of my door is who I suppose is the police officer. He’s wearing a white shirt with a blue blazer, gray pants, and a burgundy colored tie loosely knotted around his neck. He looks fit and his dark hair is combed back and gelled flat against his head.

“He’s not in a uniform,” I say without turning back to Charlie.

“I know. Someone must have died in that car crash, Jackson.”

“What?” I spin around and feel the pinch of the needle in my hand.

She takes my left hand again. “He told me he was a homicide detective and…” she pauses, as though she’s finding it difficult to share bad news, “he said he needs to talk to you when you’re up to it. Were you driving, Jackson?”

Charlie’s eyes glass over and well up. A thick tear runs down her face and detours at her lips.

“Oh God, Jackson,” she sighs. “Were you driving a car that killed someone?”

I shake my head. I’m still fuzzy about many things going on around me, but I wasn’t driving. The cops should know that too.

“I wasn’t driving.”

Charlie wipes the mascara from under her eyes with the backs of her index fingers and puffs out her cheeks to exhale. She seems spent but she’s still beautiful.

“I’ve got to clean up,” she says. She stands and fans her face with her hands. “I am a mess!” She leans down to kiss my forehead. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

I roll back, still twisted in the IV line, to watch her leave. My eyes are fixed on her skinny jeans until she stops to talk to the officer in the chair. She says something, looks back at me and smiles, and disappears down the hall.

The officer stands, brushes off the arms of his blazer, and walks to the doorway of my room.

“Ah’m Detective Crockett,” he says, leaning in against the door jamb. He has a deep southern twang. “Your girlfriend here says you’re feelin’ better. Maybe we could talk?”

“Sure,” I tell him. What other choice do I have? “Is George okay?”

“Who’s George?” he asks. “I’m here to talk to ya ‘bout Bobby.”

The beeping from the heart monitor gets louder and repeats faster. It’s an unintentional lie detector. The detective notices and tilts his head. His right hand has a red and yellow tattoo. There is something inked on his fingers too.

“Hmmph,” he grunts and slips his hands into his pants pockets. “Sumpin’ got ya nervous, Mr. Quick?”

“Do I need a lawyer?” I don’t think I want to tell this guy anything.

“I dunno,” he says, taking a step into the room. “Do ya?” He takes another step toward my bed when he’s interrupted.

“Excuse me,” says a tall woman with broad shoulders and a surgical cap on her head who pushes past the detective and stands between him and me. “You can’t be in here.” I recognize the baritone. It’s the man-woman. “I’ve already told you this,” she says as her words push Crockett back out of the room. “He hasn’t been awake for ten minutes. I need to check his vitals. He’s had injuries to his head.”

“The girlfriend gave me permission,” he says, maybe a little bit intimidated by the doctor. “So I figgered…”

“You
figgered
wrong,” she mocks him. “Now go!” She waves him back to his chair. “If you bother him again until I give you permission, you’ll be out of my hospital.”

The cop backs up to his chair and sits down. He brushes off his jacket sleeves and crosses his legs. He pulls out a cell phone and starts dialing.

The man-woman turns her full attention to me and grabs a clipboard from the end of the bed. “I’m Doctor Graff,” she says, “and you are…Jackson Quick?”

I nod.

“You have had a nasty day, Mr. Quick,” she tells me. “A concussion. At least one. You’ve got a couple of deep lacerations to the scalp at the base of your skull. We pulled some glass fragments from your head. They looked like tinted window glass, probably from a car. Blood work shows no alcohol in your system, or any other drugs. You did lose a fair amount of blood and were dehydrated when you got here.”

I just look at her.

“So,” she says, “your prognosis is good. We stitched you up with a half dozen dissolving sutures. You might need a little Tylenol or something for the next couple of days, but other than that…”

“I can go?”

She shrugs her massive shoulders and folds her arms across her chest, pressing the clipboard flat against herself. “I guess so. It’ll be a few hours. We need to do some paperwork and such, but you should be out of here by later this morning.”

“Morning?” I ask. “When did I get here?”

“Middle of the night,” she says. “Six or seven hours ago. Someone just dropped you off. We thought you were homeless at first, then we found your wallet in your front pocket, and your phone.”

I roll back onto my left side. For some reason, it’s more comfortable.

“How do you want me to handle this cop out here?” Doctor Graff walks around to the left side of the bed, sitting in Charlie’s chair. “Want me to stall him? I mean, I know I should be helpful to the police. Lord knows, I don’t know you from Adam. But that cop gives me the creeps. He’s way pushier than most who come in here.”

“Where is here?” I ask. I still don’t know where exactly I am.

“Memorial Hermann Texas Medical Center. Busiest trauma room in the country,” she smiles, unconsciously pulling back those shoulders with pride. “What do you want me to do?”

“Have you seen his badge?” I asked. “What police department is he with?”

“You know,” she says, considering the question, “I don’t know. Let me check.” She gets up from the chair, still holding the clipboard and walks back across the room to the hallway. I can’t see into the hall.

Charlie is standing in the doorway, her hands in her pockets. Her hair is out of its ponytail and softly frames her face. She smiles at me and walks to the right side of my bed, next to the IV machine. She sits on the edge of the bed and puts her hand on the white sheet covering my legs.

“You okay?” I ask. My voice still doesn’t sound normal. It’s raspy.

“Am
I
okay?” She laughs and tosses her head back. “You’re in a horrible crash, the police want to talk to you, and you ask if
I’m
okay.”