Simon Said (12 page)

Simon was very sleepy, but he didn't question it. He watched with detachment as he passed a blur of houses, trees, and alley entrances. His breathing became difficult, and his chest hurt. At the same time, his instincts and his judgment stalled. He went through a stop sign. The street curved to the right up ahead, but he continued on straight, dead into a stone retaining wall. He heard an awful crunching noise, his windshield grew a thousand spidery cracks, and the soft white folds of the air bag exploded out of the steering column as his body lurched forward. The engine was still running.

He wasn't aware of anything until he heard two voices.
"Maybe we should wait for the paramedics," said the first voice.

"I don't think so," said the second voice. "We should get him out in case the car blows up."

 

"It's not going to blow up, you dweeb. There's no fire, and no gas leaking. But maybe we should pull him out anyway."

Someone opened the car door on the driver's side, and Simon saw two young teenage girls, one dark and one blonde. Teen angels, Simon thought absurdly. The dark one tried to undo his seat belt, but it was jammed. The blonde pulled out a Swiss army knife and cut through the belt. Then she grabbed Simon under the armpits and pulled him free of the remains of the air bag. The dark one disentangled his legs and the two carried him about ten feet from the car, then lowered him onto the grass near the two bikes they had dropped. They were strong girls, Simon thought. But then, they were both bigger than he was.

The open air and cool grass began to clear Simon's head. What in God's name had happened to him?

 

"Don't worry, mister, the paramedics will be here soon. The lady across the street called nine-one-one," the brunette said.

Simon tried to speak, but he couldn't come up with the words to match his thoughts. "Do you think he's drunk?" asked the blonde.

"I'm not drunk," Simon said. "I think I'm sick." It was the only explanation for his behavior he could think of that matched how he felt. His chest still hurt.

The authorities arrived in the form of two fire engines, an ambulance, and a police car. A small crowd began to gather. Sergeant Gates climbed out of the police car with a uniformed officer.

Simon was sitting up and coughing repeatedly while the medics examined him. "How do you feel?" asked one of the paramedics.
"My chest hurts," Simon said. "I can't breathe very well."
"Do you have heart problems, diabetes? Any in your family?"
"No," said Simon.
"Do you take any medications? Do any recreational drugs?"

Simon hated to answer this question in front of Gates, who was standing just a couple of feet away with his arms crossed. The policeman who had come in the patrol car with him was taking photographs of Simon's car.

"I take an antidepressant," Simon said. "I've got some other prescriptions, but I haven't taken anything else today. That's all."

"How did you feel before the accident, while you were driving?" Gates asked. "What are you doing here?" Simon said.

"Just happened to be in the area. Now how did you feel before the wreck?" Gates asked again.

"I was sleepy, and I couldn't think."
Gates, the policeman, and the medic looked at each other knowingly.

"Have you had any trouble with your car's exhaust system recently?" the policeman asked.

Simon answered that the car was fine, as far as he knew. At that point, the medic strapped an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth, making talking difficult. The medic looked in Simon's eyes with a small flashlight and checked him for broken bones. Simon noticed that Gates had gotten down on his hands and knees and was looking under his car. The policeman was interviewing the two girls. Gates stood up, then looked back toward Simon. He had a very serious expression on his face.

"Well," the medic said. "I don't think that there's anything wrong with you that a hundred percent oxygen for a while won't cure."

"What is it?" Simon mumbled through the mask.
"Carbon monoxide poisoning," the medic said.

Simon tried to process this startling information as he was loaded into the ambulance. He could have been killed, or killed someone else. Gates looked in the back of the ambulance just before it drove off.

"I'll check in on you at the hospital later," he said. "Whom should I call?" Simon gave him Walker Jones's home number. Somehow, he didn't think he'd be working tomorrow.

 

"What about my car?" asked Simon.

 

"I'll take care of the car," Gates said.
Chapter Thirteen

"IT'S LIKE THIS," THE EMERGENCY ROOM DOC SAID. "WHEN YOU breathe, oxygen molecules hook up to your red blood cells and get transported all over your body. When they get to their destination, the molecules are released, and the red blood cells head back to the lungs for more oxygen. However, the carbon monoxide molecule hooks up to a red blood corpuscle and never lets go. When enough red blood cells can't carry oxygen to your body because they've been hijacked by carbon monoxide, you suffocate."

Wonderful, thought Simon. He was lying in a cubicle in the local emergency room, where the paramedics had deposited him.

 

"Get that car fixed," the medic had said to him earlier while his partner briefed the doctor. "You could have hurt someone, not to mention yourself."

 

"I didn't know anything was wrong with it," Simon said. "It was not my intent to drive around a residential neighborhood in a semiconscious state and hit a stone wall." "It's a good thing those girls pulled you out," said the medic. "Or you would have gotten an even bigger snifter of the stuff."

Simon had spent a long hour lying on a narrow bed in the emergency room before any doctor saw him. His was obviously a pretty boring case. The nurse had taken his pulse, blood pressure, and temperature. The oxygen mask had been replaced with a thing that hooked under his nose and into the wall. At least he could talk. The doctor had come in, read the medics' report and the nurse's notes, grinned at him, and left. Finally, he had returned to lecture him on the life cycle of red blood cells.

"Fortunately for you," the doc said, "red blood cells don't live very long before they die and get replaced. You'll need to stay overnight on oxygen. You should feel better by morning."

Simon didn't want to stay in the hospital, but he knew the doctor was right. He still felt awful.

 

"What was wrong with your car?" the doctor asked.

How should I know? Simon thought. I'm here in the emergency room waiting for my red corpuscles to die. I haven't had a chance to have any lengthy conversations with my mechanic.

"I don't know yet."
"Better get it fixed."
No. I just thought I'd drive it again first and see what happens.
"We'll get you admitted right away," the doctor said.
"Thank you," Simon said.

Right away in hospital parlance clearly meant something completely different from the dictionary definition. First, he had to wait for the admissions person to come and take down volumes of insurance information. She also wanted to note down the number of his AmEx card, which Simon found worrisome. Then he had to wait for them to find a bed on the appropriate ward, which appeared to be the pulmonary unit. There were a number of beds available on other wards, but apparently one of these just wouldn't do. Then he had to wait for a wheelchair. Finally, he had to wait for an aide to come and push him up to his room. It was not acceptable for him to walk there himself. The admitting officer implied that the possible scenarios that could result from his selfambulation were horrific. He could fall down, get hurt, or even die, and his family might sue the hospital. She didn't accept the possibility that he might make it.

Eventually Simon was escorted up to his room by a very nice-looking young woman. He was then forced to undress and put on one of those hospital gowns that don't cover anything. A nurse put another oxygen thing under his nose. Simon had to admit that he could breathe better now.

"I thought I read somewhere that these things were going to be redesigned," Simon said about the gown.

"What fun would that be?" the nurse said.
Simon asked her about food. He was starving.

"Dinner was over hours ago. I'll bring you some ginger ale and crackers. Breakfast in the morning usually gets up to this floor about quarter to six."

The nurse deserted him, with an air that indicated that he didn't need much attention and wasn't going to get any. Simon lay in his bed and began to worry What was wrong with his car? What was Gates going to do with it? Would he be able to work tomorrow? Should he call his own doctor and tell him he was in the hospital with carbon monoxide poisoning? What if his red blood cells were unusually long-lived? Would he be able to go on his date with Julia tomorrow night? Just how much damage could Maybelline do if she didn't get let out or fed this evening?

Simon was contemplating trying to work the hospital phone system when his delivering angel walked in. His friend David Morgan had never looked better to him. He was his usual potbellied, underdressed self, and he carried a huge McDonald's bag in one hand and Simon's only pair of pajamas in the other.

"If you die," David said, "can I have your Otis Redding boxed set?"
"No. I'm taking it with me."
"You don't look all that bad. What happened to your car?"

"If another person asks me that, I'm going to scream. I don't know what's wrong with the car. Something, obviously. What's in the bag?"

 

"Sodium, caffeine, fat. Smells good, doesn't it? Gosh, if I'd known you were hungry, I'd have brought you some. This is mine."

 

Before Simon could protest, David grinned and tossed him the bag.

 

"These, however, will cost you," he said, holding Simon's pajamas aloft. "Pay up or go bare-assed all night."

 

"This is not funny," Simon said. "Give those to me right now."

David gave him the pajamas, and Simon quickly put them on. Then he dug into his Quarter Pounder with cheese, fries, and large Coke. David sat in the chair next to Simon's bed and watched him eat.

"Honestly, how do you feel?" David asked.

 

"Better," Simon said with his mouth full. "I just have to stay for the night. Until my poisoned red blood cells die."

 

"Please, spare me the gory details."

 

"When you got my pajamas, did you let my cat out, by any chance? And how did you get in the house?"

 

"I remembered your strange habit of leaving the back door unlocked," David said. "And yes, I let the cat out, and back in, and fed her, too. Nasty creature." "How did you know what happened?"

 

"Sergeant Gates called Walker Jones, and he called me. Walker said to tell you, by the way, that he'll cover your class for you tomorrow."

 

David left a half an hour later, after promising to go by Simon's house in the morning and tend to the cat. Right after he left, Julia called him.

 

"This is kind of an extreme way to get out of our date tomorrow, isn't it?" she asked. "Are you all right?"

"I will be," Simon said. "I'm lucky I wasn't killed, or didn't kill someone else." "Do you want to postpone tomorrow?"

"Absolutely not. I might gasp every now and then, but I think I'll be fine. How did you know I was here?"

"From Sergeant Gates. I was still at the office when he came in to file a report." "Do you know what he did with my car?"

"It's been impounded. It's locked in the county lot. They'll release it to you when they're done with it."

Simon didn't much like the sound of this.
"Why would Sergeant Gates impound my car? I need to get it repaired." "You haven't talked to him?"
"No. Why?"

Julia was silent for a few seconds. Simon couldn't help but think she was trying to get out of an uncomfortable situation.

"Look," she said. "He's a very thorough policeman. He must have had a reason." "I can't imagine what it could be."

"Let's just say that, generally speaking, carbon monoxide poisoning attracts his attention. Don't worry about it. You can probably have the car tomorrow."

After Simon hung up the phone, he had the distinct impression that Julia knew something that he didn't know about his own accident. It was a feeling he did not like at all, not just because he didn't want to be in the dark but also because he didn't want to think that she would hide anything from him.

Simon wondered where anyone had gotten the idea that a hospital was a restful place. The only people who could rest here were in the morgue. It was unbelievably noisy. People walked around all night, talking as if they were on the streets of New York City in the middle of the day. Their sex lives and grudges against supervisors were the main topics of conversation. The doctors, nurses, orderlies, and janitors all dressed the same— in jeans or wrinkled slacks with lab coats that didn't fit. Simon figured that the ones carrying stethoscopes were medical personnel, but he wouldn't have bet his life on it.

The only concession to night was that the overhead lights in the rooms were turned off.

Television was the drug of choice for everyone—patients, doctors, and nurses. Every bed had a little TV set above it, all tuned to different channels. Situation comedies prevailed, so raucous laughter and applause burst inappropriately from rooms full of sick people. People who were unconscious or asleep were not spared. Nurses would automatically turn on any set in any room they entered. Exhausted interns would slip in, change the channel, and sedate themselves for a few minutes before the next crisis. George Orwell got it backward, Simon thought. Instead of Big Brother watching us, we're watching Big Brother.

A new nurse walked into Simon's room. The evening shift, he assumed. "Don't you want the TV on?" she said.
"No," Simon answered. "Absolutely not."
"Get some rest, then."
"How could anyone sleep here? This place is like Grand Central Station," Simon said. "I could bring you a sleeping pill."
"Please do."

Even under the influence of a sedative, Simon didn't sleep very well. The oxygen thing under his nose irritated him, and his room turned out to be next to the helicopter landing pad. About one in the morning, a huge helicopter landed with a noisy whir and rotating blue-and-red lights that filled his room. Simon rose about a foot out of his bed. He thought he'd had a close encounter of the third kind—contact with alien space invaders. He got to his window just in time to see the helicopter, which had a big red cross on its side, discharge some poor soul on a stretcher. He went back to bed, but it was a long time before his adrenaline stopped pumping. Another helicopter landed about four. This one had military insignia on the side and three stretchers.