32
“No ambulance,” he begs. “They’ll find us.” Mrs. Lee points at her old Prius, still parked in the same place. We hop in and I drive it like a maniac. Running red lights, honking as if the world was made of deaf men. A single police officer to stop us and Simon is dead. There’s blood. Mrs. Lee keeps some pressure on the wound, but it’s hard to tell if it’s enough, when your eyes have to stay on the road. I clamp the pedal to the floor and pray to the immortals that we get there alive.
At the emergency entrance, I stop the car and jump out , already yelling “Help!” The Oakland Mission Hospital isn’t big, but it’s still full of all the stupid red tape bureaucrats can think up—Jason always says. Yet, if you stop at the E.R. and squawk that single, magic word, they will take you in without asking questions. “Help!” I insist. They do.
Two male nurses at first, then they recognize me and bring two more, plus a gurney, place Simon on top and roll it away. Blood drops leave a dark trail through the double doors. Behind me, Mrs. Lee continues to ramble hysterically. I pull her against my chest. The hospital drama: the rush, the screaming…I’ve seen it before, but never from within.
“Jason?!” I shout. “Is Dr. Sonderup back?” I ask.
He’s traveling, I know. War zone crap. But that’s the second code. Nurses are trained like waiters to never get distracted by begging hands. But mention a doctor’s name, the spell is broken.
“Claudia?” From a distance, Denise waves and picks up the phone. She is a nice woman, in her late fifties, close to retirement but avoiding it because she finds too much pleasure in telling others what to do. Thirty giant seconds later, Jason comes running, panic in his eyes. “What happened? Are you Ok?”
What is he doing here?
“The blackouts must have erased my data or something. At the last minute the airline had Dr. Jonathan Fox as the passenger. There was no time to change it, so he went instead. Are you Ok? What happened?” He holds my hands, examines my face and his hand slides toward the back of my neck. I shake my head.
Please, this isn’t the time. “My friend, he got shot in the chest!” Then I point to Mrs. Lee. “And she got assaulted and is concussed or in some sort of shock. I can’t get her to tell me what happened.” He checks her eyes, mouth….No more screaming, her heart slows a little. Maybe she recognizes him. Then her legs fail. Jason still has a hold on her face. It’s the only reason she’s not on the floor.
“We have to call the police,” Jason says, and gently waves for a wheelchair. In the E.R., panic is for real disasters. Multiple casualties and no time to think, he told me once. Earthquakes, massive shootings and fires. The only things that scare me. That, and my headaches. I feel a sting. Is that real or just my imagination?
No, it’s gone. “Please, no police, no records?” I squeeze his hand. Because of the discipline of fighting, I’m good under pressure, but once the action is over, adrenaline always breaks me. Usually I can pretend to be tired. But not here. Not with Jason. “Even if I don’t, tomorrow someone will,” he says.
Fair.
It’s 5 pm, I’ll handle it once the sun rises. Now, my bones feel made of Jell-O. I just need a break. I lace my fingers through his and he keeps them there until someone calls.
Denise. The one who likes to give orders.
Finally alone, I pull Jason by the collar and kiss him hard. My leg hooks him on the waist, then the other finishes the grab. Like a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu guard, only standing. There’s no space for lying on mats here. Not in the drugs room. The wall is close, though, so I push my feet against it and throw us both against the glass doors of the locked cabinet where the good stuff lives. A few bottles fall. I make a silent “shhh” sign, laughing and kissing at the same time. We almost break our teeth.
He says, “Marry me,” and with all the conviction I have, I say the only thing I can: “Why?”
“C’mon, you want it too.”
The silence is immense. I need to see how serious he is first. He drops on a knee. Shit. I put on the cutest face I can make: “No way!” He’s in shock. What did he expect? “You can move back in if you stop being a snowflake,” I say, and we go back to making out. Then I push him away again. Wait. “Where is Simon? You gotta take care of Simon.”
He ignores my request and attacks my mouth again.
No. I thrust away from him. There is something wrong. A shadow, a presence. I search around and, behold, Simon, stands next to us, inches from our faces, a deranged smile on his face.
From my seat, I jump, confused. Body hurts. There are no drug bottles around us. No Simon. Just the ugly room and the Robocop bed where Mrs. Lee rests. I cover my face with both hands and stay there, in the darkness, trying to recover from the bad dream. Breathe, breathe, breathe…Then a tender touch on the back of my head and a wave of goosebumps.
“I like the hair,” he says. Jason. Now I can’t tell where the dream started. Or ended. I may have blushed. He says she’s going to be Ok.
I say “shhh,” as if I know more than he does. His smile, usually so gentle and comforting, embarrasses me a little. I feel silly. He points to the door and, being still half asleep, I have no idea if that was a naughty or chaste invite.
“I know I’ve been an ass,” he says, “I have no right to…”
I cover his mouth with a finger. That was all I wanted to hear. “I said shhh.”
There’s no one watching, I make sure, so I kiss him on the lips. “Once this is over, we’ll talk more, Ok?”
I push his chest with one hand pull his collar with the other, then throw both arms around him. Need his warmth a little more. But it’s not the time to commit. I push him again and he gives me a puzzled dog face. Confusing, I know. But I’m Chinese, a living paradox.
“Claudia?” a voice calls me from the inside. I let him go.
Alone in the dim light of the hospital room, my friend, teacher, student, and acupuncturist gives me a half-eyed drugged smile. She mumbles, “All things difficult before easy. Want a peach?” She points at the fruit basket with a “Get well” balloon.
Heard that before. All things difficult before easy. Shifu used to tell me that at the beginning of every big lesson.
“They told me to say that to you,” she says.
Having conversations with crazies is funny, sometimes. Had many with knocked-out people before they completely woke up. Just sit down and listen.
“The short one says I have a lizard horse inside. I like him.”
“A dragon,” I say.
“No, it was a horse. He showed me one.”
I laugh, “I mean it’s a dragon horse. Did he show you one? What did it look like?”
“Oh, it was wonderful. Giant hooves, muscles popping from under its scales, and waves instead of hair. It had so many colors…”
I try not to laugh. “That’s so wonderful, Mrs. Lee. Who is ‘he’?”
“You think…I’m hallucinating, don’t you?” Hmm. “Those nice men from China, the ones from the park and Chinatown.”
“The bozos,” I say.
Though groggy, she still admonishes me. Says they are valiant, warriors, that they fought monkeys with their iron bodies and fire-shooting hands. Like the stories Shifu used to tell me, just with a soft mouth and a swollen tongue. “In real life, kung fu not good, but in dream, they…magnificent,” she says. “And I love that I have a lizard horse now. He’s so sweet.”
Dragon, I correct. A pause for breathing and mind-wandering, then she comes back.
“They told me to read to my friend again. My friend, you got it? You.”
In slow motion, like Tai Chi, she points at her big purse. I give it to her. That brick can cause some serious spine damage, I tell her. She grabs a small book from inside, opens to the marked page. But the light is weak, and even weaker is her sight, so she hands it to me. “Read, aloud.” She wants me to hear the words—they asked for that. Ok…
Can you make yourself embrace The Dao and not lose it?
My mind follows and bitches. “I’ve heard that before, Mrs. Lee.”
“Quiet,” she chirps.
Can you gather your qi and yet be tender like a newborn?
Tender like a hammer, I think.
Can you clean your inner reflection and keep it spotless?
I don’t resist. “C’mon, Mrs. Lee, you’ve seen my apartment. I can’t keep anything spotless.” She shushes me once more, makes me proceed.
Can you care for the people and rule the country,
and not be cunning?
Can you open and close the gate of Heaven
and act like a woman?
Can you comprehend everything in the four directions
and still do nothing?
“Wu Wei,” I respond. She nods.
To give birth to them and nourish them, carry them without taking possession of them, care for them without subduing them, raise them without steering them.
“Can you?” she asks. “Only way out, they say. Of your mess. The dragon-lizard agrees. Take a peach, will you?”
Is she talking about Jason? Letting him come back? Forget about the Indian bitch and let it play? That may be in place already. See? I’m in synch with the Dao. The other thing she’s right about: we need to get out of this mess. But Wu Wei, doing nothing, or any of that, will not help. I pace around. We have to leave this hospital before they find us. She takes the book from my hand, rips a few pages, to my shock.
“What? This is just paper, honey.” Then put the folded sheets in my back pocket and continues as if she hadn’t just destroyed a sacred book. “I’m a former hippie, you know?” she says, “They called me Blossom back then…Although some say peace and love never leave you. No, that’s not what I must say. Plans, I think we should make plans. For after. After the mess.” Her hands are comforting. “It will be alright. You know the path. Let’s talk about Molly.”
Molly was in charge of the class while I was out. “How about we talk about what happened to you, Mrs. Lee? Do you know why those guys took you? Where they took you? What they did…”
She interrupts me with her drowsy mouth. “I heard she’s in Oregon. With another asshole. A weed-head. I’ve nothing against weed. I was a hippie, you know?” Her meds must be kicking in again. It’s just a matter of time until she quiets down. “Assholes on weed are the absolute worst. I fucked a bunch of them. I know. A lizard horse, she needs. Molly. And a tigress. Beside her.” Dragon, I say. Dragon horse. “Yeah, a dragon horse. Inside of me. So beautiful. Can you go protect her?”
She dives into her own mind and zonks out.
I’m free to think.
Or act.
Perhaps pray.
Waiting for the immortals in Heaven to act isn’t necessarily my way, but this moment isn’t the most ordinary. Simon being operated on somewhere, my oldest student concussed because of me, the Army searching for my face in every database in the universe. I tell her I wish I could protect every girl trapped by a prick, but that’s for later. She doesn’t respond. Maybe she’s in another dimension with the three masters and her dragon horse. Or just passed out on morphine. At least she’s quiet. I launch my sight through the glass toward those city-washed stars and lose myself in the nothing.