Chapter 11


Guilt is to the spirit what pain is to the body.” Elder David Bednar

 

Xavier wanted to go see Raymone before he left the hospital. He had been discharged an hour or so earlier but he wasn’t allowed to walk inside the hospital due to safety precautions.

“Baby, I don’t know if it’s a good idea to go see Raymone. You need to do some more healing and his room is way on the other side of this hospital. It’s not a short walk, you know,” Fancy told him.

“Look, Ma, just say that you don’t want to wheel me over there to see him. I can do it myself. You can go on home. I will call an Uber to bring me home, but I’m not leaving this hospital until I see Raymone,” Xavier insisted.

Fancy shook her head. She was at her wit’s end. It was bad enough that Xavier could have killed himself and Raymone, but thank God the good Lord saw fit to let both boys live to see another day. She hated that Raymone was a quadriplegic, but she was grateful that her son was going to be just fine. He had some emotional wounds that far outweighed the physical wounds, and that was the real reason she didn’t want him to go see Raymone. She believed that Xavier would completely break seeing the young man in the state that he was in. Then again, she knew that she was not about to leave Xavier by himself so she gave in to his demands and agreed to take him to see him.

Xavier was still somewhat weak from the effects of the accident, combined with the pain meds so it was good that he was traveling around the massive hospital in a wheelchair pushed by his mother.

When he arrived to the Neurology/Neurosurgery floor, he stopped at the nurses’ station and asked the room number for Raymone Sanders. He’d tried calling Raymone several times, but his parents, rather his mother, refused to let him talk to him. He hated that his mother was so angry with him, but he understood because he was angry with himself.

As Fancy pushed him up to the door to Raymone’s room, he knocked lightly.

“Come in,” he heard Raymone’s mother say.

He pushed the door open with his good arm. His other arm was still in a cast that he would have to wear for the next six weeks. That meant he would be going away to school with his arm still in a cast, but at this point in time, Xavier didn’t know if he would be able to go to college. He was riddled with guilt and couldn’t see his life continuing when Raymone’s was ruined.

“What are you doing here?” Mrs. Sanders asked when she saw Fancy pushing Xavier inside the room. The room was dark and Xavier was immediately brought to tears seeing the love of his life lying in the hospital bed with tubes running in and out of his body.

Raymone managed to turn his head less than an inch. He followed more with his eyes at the sound of his mother’s voice.

He rolled up close to Raymone’s bedside and took hold of his hand. Caressing it and massaging it slightly he told Raymone, “I’m sorry, Raymone. I’m so sorry,” he cried. “I’m here for you. I won’t leave you; I promise,” he confessed. At that moment, he knew there was no way he could leave Raymone and go to Xavier University. Not after seeing him like this.

“You should be sorry. This is all your fault,” Raymone’s mother cried out. “Do you see what you’ve done?”

The blood pressure monitoring machine suddenly began to wail. Mrs. Sanders looked at it and immediately pushed the button for the nurse.

“Look what you’ve done. You’ve got him all upset. You need to leave, Xavier,” she ordered and walked over to the door, opened it, and waited for Fancy to turn Xavier around and push him out of the room.

Xavier was heartbroken and distraught.

Mrs. Sanders followed them out of the room and into the hallway. “How dare you bring him up here. What were you thinking?” she chastised Fancy.

“You know that Raymone and Xavier are best friends. How could I not bring him to see him? And you don’t have to be so mean. Xavier is suffering, too. This was an accident, a horrible, horrible accident, and I can understand you being upset, but to take it out on Xavier like this just isn’t right. He already feels terrible. This hurts him more than you can imagine.”

“Who are you to come up here and tell me what isn’t right? Until you walk in my shoes or better yet until you can sit day in and day out with your child and know that because of someone else’s negligence his life is ruined, then don’t you come up here and dare try to tell me how to act or behave.” Mrs. Sanders turned her attention toward Xavier. “Raymone cared deeply for you, Xavier.”

Xavier dropped his head as tears flowed from his eyes and down his cheeks.

Focusing once again on Fancy, Mrs. Sanders said, “And for your information, Miss Holier- than-thou First Lady Fancy McCoy, Raymone and Xavier were more than best friends. As much as you hate to say it, they’re gay; they were lovers and you know it, but now my baby, my poor child’s life is over. All because of your son’s carelessness. Xavier gets to leave here and go home. In a few weeks, he’ll be good as new, but my poor Raymone,” she said looking at Xavier again with red tear-filled eyes that penetrated through him like steel, “will never ever walk again. He’s paralyzed in his legs, hands, and triceps. He only has use of his biceps, wrists, and right index finger. Because of this he will not be able to even get in and out of the bed or a chair independently. He has to wear a catheter because he can’t control his piss or his bowels! He won’t be able to dress himself. He’ll forever be dependent on someone else to care for him. So don’t you dare preach to me about what’s right!”

Fancy proceeded to push Xavier away from the woman as she fought back tears of her own. It was heart wrenching to hear the words that spewed out of the woman’s mouth. It hurt like hell, and Fancy could only imagine how hurt Xavier was seeing Raymone laid up like he was and hearing his mother blame him for everything. She pushed the wheelchair up the hospital corridor toward the elevators as fast as she could.

Xavier began to wail like a wounded animal as they got on the elevator. He couldn’t control the agony in his heart. What was life without Raymone, his first true and only love? His life was over; it was done. He wanted to die.

On the drive home there was nothing she knew to say except that he should pray for Raymone. Xavier wasn’t hearing it. He didn’t want to hear anything about prayer or God; he wanted everything back the way it was. So rather than disrespect his mom, he remained silent all the way home.

At home, Xavier went straight to his room, shut the door, locked it, and turned on his laptop to research ways that he could kill himself without leaving a mess for his mother to clean up.

Fancy called Khalil on the phone to express her concern about Xavier.

“What’s going on?” Khalil asked when he arrived at his mother’s home.

Fancy was in the kitchen preparing something to eat. “You want a sandwich?” she asked.

“Yeah, sure. Is that turkey?”

“Yes, you want your cheese melted?”

“Yes, you know how to do it up, Ma.”

“Xavier is in a bad way. I took him by Raymone’s room to see him before we left the hospital. His mother was there and she went clean off on Xavier and me too. And seeing the boy lying in the hospital bed totally helpless didn’t help the situation either.”

“Well, Ma, you and Xavier have to put yourself in his mother’s shoes. I mean, this is something serious. Her son is paralyzed all over his body. I mean that’s a tough pill for anyone to swallow, you know?” Khalil walked over to the oversized kitchen island, pulled out a stool, and sat down.

“Yes, but that doesn’t help Xavier any. My child is depressed and sad.”

“He needs to man up. Suck it up. I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but it is what it is. There’s nothing he can do about what happened. All things happen for a reason; sometimes we have a hard time accepting that, but it still rings true.”

Fancy continued making the sandwiches with all the trimmings but paused just a second to give Khalil a strange stare.

“What?”

“I had to look at you for a minute; you sounded just like Hezekiah.”

“Speaking of dad, how is the old man?”

“He hates that place. I can’t say I blame him. It’s second class and the times I’ve gone to see him, it smells like a pile of crap.”

“He’s only been there for a couple of weeks, Ma. Give it some time. Maybe the smell will give him the will to work hard to improve his speech and his ability to get around.”

“He can get around in that chair, but the thing is he still needs help to get in the chair from the bed. And that catheter easily sets up infection. He has another urinary tract infection.”

“TMI, Ma. Now back to Xavier. Only the good Lord can change the situation with Raymone. Until He does then Xavier needs to grow up, and stop acting like a little punk.”

Xavier appeared in the doorway of the kitchen just in time to hear his brother’s remarks.

“You don’t care about anyone but yourself. What do you know about friendship and love anyway?” he scolded Khalil.

“Man, you need to stop acting like a little broad. Okay, so your partner is out for the count. What are you gonna do? You gonna go down too?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, you’re even weaker than I thought. No wonder you’re gay,” Khalil shot back.

“Stop it,” Fancy screamed at the two of them. “I will not have this name calling and fighting in my house.”

Khalil stood from the stool and walked toward his brother. Pointing a finger at his chest, he let Xavier know exactly what he felt. “Okay, so you wanna take yourself out cause of something that was an accident. Go ahead then. Take the easy way out, sucka.”

“Stop it, Khalil,” Fancy ordered again.

“No, Ma, this fool needs to hear the truth. You think you’re the only one that’s messed up? Yeah, that’s your partner or whatever y’all call one another, but it’s nothing you can do to change what happened. Try to be a better man for it. Do what you can to help dude but don’t crawl up in a corner and die. That’s a sucka move, a weak move, a little boy move. You’re a grown man, or you’re supposed to be. Where’s your backbone, bruh?”

Xavier stared at Khalil. At first he was mad but then his brother’s words began to sink in. Maybe the best thing to do was to stick by Raymone, to show him how much he cared about him and how sorry he was for what happened. If it took the rest of his life, he would never stop trying to help Raymone see that his life wasn’t over and neither was their relationship. Right now, he understood that Raymone was in a deep state of depression and denial, and maybe it would take a while, a long while before he would be able to see him, especially since his mother was acting like a gatekeeper. But someway somehow he was going to make things right.

Xavier didn’t say a word in response to Khalil’s words. He turned, walked out of the kitchen, and back up the stairs.

Fancy and Khalil heard his bedroom door slam shut behind him.

“How could you be so cruel?” Fancy asked.

“Ma, he’s not a little girl. He’s a grown man. Either he’s going to take heed to what I said or he’s going to shut himself off up there in that room and give up. It’s his choice. Either way, you need to stop catering to him. That’s why he’s a punk now.”

“What did you say? Are you blaming his sexuality on me?”

Khalil walked over to the stainless steel double wide refrigerator, opened it, and retrieved a gallon jug of tea.”

Fancy passed him a glass.

Khalil filled the glass with ice, opened the tea, and poured himself a glass before he returned to his stool.

“Naw, I’m not blaming you or anybody else for him being the way that he is. But I am saying that you’ve always babied him. It’s time to let him be a man. He needs to get to work at the church or get outta here and go to college cause running off to his room and having a pity party ain’t gonna work.”

Fancy pushed the plate with his turkey sandwich, a side of potato salad, and potato chips in front of him. “Eat your food. I’m going upstairs. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“That’s how you gonna do?”

“I’m tired, Khalil. I’m so tired.” Fancy broke down and started crying.

Khalil got up again from his stool, walked over to his mom, and held her in his arms. “Don’t cry, Ma. Please don’t cry,” he said rubbing her head gently. “Everything is going to be all right. You’ll see.”