Lucky for him, or maybe for me, I didn’t know the back road well enough to be flying along at sixty miles an hour. I missed a turn, bounced up over a drainage ditch and went flying into the bushes. I don’t remember if it was the ground or a tree or what that put me out, I only remember coming to with the sun in my eyes, a bee buzzing over me, and a whole lot of pain in my left shoulder and arm, ribs, and the side of my head.
It was the phone ringing and vibrating in my pocket that brought me back to my senses. Cindy, of course. All I told her was that I’d taken a spill and didn’t think the bike was going to start, and maybe she should load the ramp onto the truck and come and get me. She had the good sense to call Pops while she was gathering up the girls. He was a full ten minutes closer to me than she was, and by the time Cindy and the girls arrived, I was already sitting in his car, hurting like hell with every breath, and still too shaky to wipe the blood off my face and arms.
Cindy started crying when she saw me, and though I wanted more than anything to go home, she told Pops in no uncertain terms that she was taking me straight to the hospital. He got the truck backed up over the drainage ditch, then he and Cindy muscled the bike up the ramp while the girls watched from inside the truck, and I watched all of them through the side mirror of Pops’ Lumina.
Talk about feeling stupid. I still planned to go after McClaine first chance I got, but in my current condition I stood about as much chance against him as a hamster.
Once the bike was loaded up, Pops came to the car to tell me he and Cindy were swapping vehicles and that she would drive me to the hospital, but I begged him to take me himself. So he made up a story about the brakes on his Lumina going bad, and in the end he and I led the way in the Lumina, with Cindy, the girls, and my banged-up bike bringing up the rear.
On the way to the hospital, me all balled up in pain leaning against the passenger side, Pops didn’t waste any time getting down to brass tacks. “What the hell is going on here, son? She said you went flying off like a madman.”
“Did she tell you why?”
“More or less.”
“I couldn’t sit by and do nothing, could I?”
“So instead you fly off half-cocked and nearly break your neck.”
Pops always did have a way of going straight to the heart of things. I felt like a little kid again with him scolding me like that.
He said, “You need to tell me what’s going on between you and those McClaine boys. And you need to tell me right now.”
So I did. I told him the whole story. Even what I’d left out in the version I told Cindy.
He never said a word for the next few miles. In fact, he didn’t so much as look at me again until we pulled up at the emergency entrance. Then he shut off the engine, got out and fast-walked into the hospital. A minute later, while I was still trying to climb out of the car, he comes out pushing a wheelchair, walking so fast the nurse has a hard time keeping up with him.
I got to admit I was kind of relieved to be wheeled off to X-ray before Cindy and the girls showed up.
About an hour later I’m in a hospital bed with my ribs taped and about a quart of iodine or some other orange stuff swabbed all over my cheek and arm. I must’ve looked like some kind of Apache daubed up with war paint. Then they let Cindy and the girls in to see me, while Pops went off looking for coffee that didn’t come out of a vending machine.
There wasn’t much Cindy could say about how stupid I was, not with the girls there wanting to crawl up beside me and kiss all my boo-boos. The look in her eyes said more than enough, though. She knew I had failed them, and so did I. But she didn’t know how big a failure I really was.
They stayed maybe an hour or so with me. But the girls hadn’t had any supper yet, so even though Cindy wanted to stay, she kissed me goodnight and said they’d be back in the morning.
I told her, “They might turn me loose tomorrow, babe. Why don’t you wait until I talk to the doc or whoever. I’ll give you a call when I know something.”
I almost broke down with the three of them hugging and kissing me and saying how much they loved me. God, Spence, I felt like such an idiot. You would have chewed me out good if you’d been there. Probably would’ve ripped me a new asshole, as we used to say.
Anyway, the girls weren’t gone more than a minute before Pops came back in. And he got right down to it.
“What now?” he said.
“I need to take the money back to them.”
He rubbed his cheek again, the way he sometimes does when he’s thinking. Then he said, “A few years back there was this young fella named Decarlo, Decario, something like that. Played football out at Ohio State. Supposed to be pretty good at it too. So he’s home one summer, and apparently he got to fooling around with that girl. The one you scooped up out of the mud. Next thing the kid knows, he’s arrested for raping her. Now I’m not saying he did it or didn’t. There’s only two people know that for sure. What I do know is that right before the case goes to trial, the charges get dropped. A week later the boy’s family’s house goes up for sale. From what I hear, they took quite a beating on it.”
“You think it was a scam? She suckered the kid in?”
“I’m saying I don’t think giving back the money is going to solve your problems. If I’m thinking like a McClaine, I’m thinking you’re only giving back what was mine to begin with. I’m thinking I’m going to want something more. Something of yours.”
They had me hooked up to one of those heart monitors, Spence, so it wasn’t long before a nurse came in to see why my heart was racing like I’d sprinted ten miles uphill with a full pack.
“You having a hard time breathing?” she asked.
“This tape might be a little tight.”
“It’s supposed to be tight. I’ll get you something for the pain.”
As soon as she was out the door, I looked at Pops and said, “So what are my options here?”
He said, “I’m trying to think of one.”
Then the nurse was back with a plastic bag of something, which she rigged up to drip into the tube already taped to my arm. “You’ll start feeling better in a minute or so,” she said. “You might want to tell your grandfather goodnight while you’re still awake.”
She hung around so long after that, watching the monitor and taking my pulse, that before I knew it I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open. I’d feel myself going off into the dark, sort of slowly melting down into it, then I’d yank myself back up again and force my eyes open. But then the dark would take hold of me again and suck me back down.
The last thing I remember is feeling Pops’ stubbly chin scrape against my nose as he kissed me on the forehead. I tried to lift my arms up and hug him, but I was in the quicksand then, brother, and sort of hoping I’d never have to come back out.