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It’s no longer like climbing Mt. Everest to walk to the bathroom and back to the recliner. My mind’s cleared enough that I can read a few pages of The Grapes of Wrath before I get drifty.
After dinner (chicken and greens, so it’s Thursday) I’m back in the recliner and Max is on the couch near me, remote in hand, looking for a movie that might get us laughing. She says we can all use a few laughs.
We’ve just started “Young Frankenstein” when Joe stops by with more healing tea and a special cup that has a strainer and lid that go with it. Max pauses the movie.
“You’ve got to let it steep for at least five minutes,” he tells Max.
“Thanks,” Max says. “We’ll give it a try.”
Joe moves closer, looking down at my head. “That’s one ugly gash you’ve got.”
“Thanks,” I tell him.
He laughs. “Peppy misses you,” he says. “She was okay with Jason today, though.”
Wait. What did he say? Jason? “Peppy was with Jason today?”
“Yeah, well, you were in no shape to walk her, and Tuesday, you know, long day for me.”
“But Jason?”
“Hey, I know you don’t like Jason, but that didn’t bother Peppy. She liked him okay.”
Again, I hear Jason’s high-pitched Miss Piggy voice in my head, “Enough! Let’s get outta here!”
“He...” I want to tell Joe not to trust Jason with Peppy—not to trust Jason at all, but I can’t find the words.
“What?” Joe says.
“Jason’s...”
“What???”
“You shouldn’t trust him,” I manage to say.
“I know he’s caught up with the wrong crowd, but I’m not sure that’s who he is in his heart.”
“It is who he is,” I say. “Mr. 14 Words.”
“Well, you’ll be back on the job soon. Now drink one full cup of that tea before breakfast and another before bedtime. That’ll speed things along.”
As if on cue, Max brings in the tea cup and sets it on the tray beside my/William’s chair. “Tea for you, Joe?” Max asks.
“No, thanks. I need to get back home.” Joe makes the Namaste gesture to me and leaves.
Max starts the movie again, but as funny as “Young Frankenstein” is, I drift off, not waking until the monster’s doing some song and dance thing.
“Bedtime?” Max asks. I nod. She raises the recliner to a sitting position. With her helping on the left side, and me using the right chair arm for support, I manage to stand, inch back to my bedroom, and ease myself onto the bed. Max brings in tea, a glass of water, and my bedtime pill.
“You should drink the tea, too,” she says, after I down the pill.
I take a sip and hand it back to her. She sets it on the table beside the glass of water, my phone, and a box of tissue. She fluffs my pillow, straightens the covers, pulls them up to my shoulders, kisses me on the forehead, and tells me “Sweet dreams,” like she used to do back when I was a little kid.
So tired. Fuzzy. I’ll be glad when I can get out more than a short sentence. When I can talk sense. When I can convince Joe that it’s crazy to trust Jason with his dog and in his studio.
Third day home. We sit around the table in the dining room. Six of us. Me, Max, William, Officer Harvey, Officer Romero, and Mario. I’m glad Mario was able to switch shifts with someone so he could be here for this interview. I mean, I know I didn’t do anything wrong or anything, but it’s still kind of scary to be grilled by the police. Mario knows cop-talk.
Introductions around the table, then chatter, who wants coffee, nice weather for December, how am I feeling...
Officer Romero is short and fat, with streaks of grey in her hair. She’s one of those special cops who’s always present when a minor is involved. Like Officer Goodridge back when I was only nine and had to make a statement about the pervert.
Officer Harvey is the guy who figured out William was a good guy, not one of the attackers. He starts off. “Tell us what happened on December 23, the night you were attacked.”
Mario takes a small tablet and pencil from his shirt pocket, like the tablet and pencil that Harvey has sitting in front of him.
“What were you doing right before you were attacked?”
“Buddy and I were almost home from our walk.”
“Then what?”
“I heard someone running behind me, and then I was slammed to the ground.”
Harvey checks his notes. “One person, or more?”
“More.”
“Did they tell you to empty your pockets? Give them your wallet?”
“They didn’t say anything, just pushed me down and kept beating me.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know. I woke up in the hospital.”
“Think back. Did you see anything? Anything at all?”
“Everything was black.”
“You couldn’t see anything, but what were you hearing?”
Ever since yesterday when a time was set for the interview, I’ve been thinking about what they might ask. What I might answer. Trying to find more memory, but there’s not much there.
“Try to relax, Eddie,” Mario says. “Any little detail might help.”
Long pause, then Harvey says, “Do you think your injuries came from fists? Clubs? Any ideas?”
I try to remember what I felt, run my fingers lightly along the long gash in my head. “Kicks. Boots, maybe,” I say. “I remember rolling into a ball, covering my head. I guess that’s how my hands and arms got so messed up.”
I glance over at Max, who looks like she could cry. She says she’ll bring coffee refills and goes into the kitchen.
“You think maybe someone was kicking you?” Harvey says.
I nod. “And Buddy...” At the sound of his name, Buddy slowly gets up off his bed next to William’s chair, limps over to me and leans against my leg. I give him a scratch and a pat. Harvey sits watching, pencil ready to go. “I heard Buddy growl, and then yelp.”
“What else did you hear?”
I think, try to remember, then... “William. I heard William close to me, asking where I was hurt, but I couldn’t talk.”
“And then?”
“Screeching tires, shouts at William to get away, lots of shuffling around...”
“And then?” Harvey asks.
I shrug.
“What’s the next thing you remember?”
“Max’s voice. In the hospital.”
“How about the ambulance? Did you hear the siren?”
I try to dredge up any other details. Did I hear the siren? “Okay. Yeah. I heard a siren, and a lot more shuffling around, and William telling me over and over that I was going to be okay. Oh, and before that, I forgot to say that I heard William yelling that I was his son.”
Max and Mario both turn to look at William, who’s looking at me. We haven’t talked about the son thing since we used it to get the cops off him.
Harvey flips back through his notebook and glances at a few pages. “Okay. Good, Eddie. Now tell me...”
Officer Romero glances at her big-faced watch. “Let’s take a short break.”
“Just a few more...” Harvey starts.
“A short break,” she says, giving him one of those “Don’t mess with me” looks like the kind Max has perfected.
I stand. Slowly. Everything hurts. I get my phone from the tray next to William’s chair. A text from Rosie: after sch?
I text back a thumbs up. Better. I feel better knowing I’ll see Rosie in...I check the clock...in about three hours.
Max has again topped off coffee for William and Harvey. Romero skipped the top-off. Max brings out a plate of cookies that look homemade but aren’t.
“Just a few more questions,” Harvey says, motioning me back to the table. I hobble over and lower myself into the chair. Damn, I hurt!
Harvey reads his notes, reminding me of what I’ve said so far—I heard running, was thrown to the ground, beaten, kicked, maybe with boots, heard Buddy yelp, heard William ask where I was hurt, couldn’t answer, heard screeching brakes, shouting at William to get away, William yelling that he’s your dad, a siren, William whispering you’d be okay, then waking to your mother’s voice in the hospital.
“Have I got that right?” Harvey says.
I nod.
“Yes or no?”
“Yes.”
“Anything else? Anything at all?”
I shake my head.
“What about from whoever jumped you. Any sounds from them?”
“Just running coming up behind me.”
“Nothing else?
“No,” I say, even as I’m hearing Jason’s Miss Piggy voice in my head.
“Okay,” Max says to Romero. “It’s time for Eddie’s pain meds, and he needs a rest.”
Officer Romero nods. Max tells me to get comfortable. That would be William’s chair. She brings me one of those little plastic containers of applesauce, fresh water, and a pill. I take them all in that order, recline back, close my eyes, and doze off to the murmur of voices, Harvey asking William a bunch of questions, Max fussing around in the kitchen, Mario’s occasional comments.
Again, I remember the kicks, hear Jason’s squeaky voice, “Enough. Let’s get outta here,” and I’m filled with a white-hot anger at Jason.
I should have told Harvey about that too, I guess. But maybe it seemed like it would take too much energy. The telling. The questions and more questions. Maybe another time, I tell myself.
Next thing I know Max is standing over me, nudging, whispering, “Rosie’s here. She can come back later if you’re too...”
“I’m not tired,” I say, raising the recliner, trying to look wide-eyed and awake.
“Come on in,” Max calls to Rosie. She, Max, fluffs my pillows, takes dirty dishes from my tray and goes back to the kitchen as Rosie comes in.
“Hey, Rosie,” I say, my voice hoarse and weak sounding.
“Hey, Eddie,” she says, giving me a tight smile. She stands a few feet away, watching me, like maybe I scare her or something.
I pat the arm of the recliner. “Sit. What’s up?”
She half stands, half sits, all stiff like, on the arm of the chair, facing me. “How do you feel?” she asks.
“Better.” I’m not sure that’s true, but I want Rosie to think I’m better, to stop being afraid to touch me, or look at me. “What’ve you been doing?” I ask.
“Well...I took Zoe shopping so she could get something for Mom and Dad for Christmas. That was a pain.”
“Why?”
“She wanted to get them a ‘Frozen’ jigsaw puzzle and her favorite Bundt cake, never mind that it’d be stale by Christmas. I tried to get her to think about what they might like, the joy of giving a gift that someone might actually like rather than something that she’d end up getting the benefit from.”
“She’s so like the pest,” I say, managing a small enough smile that it doesn’t hurt.
“And then we go to the bookstore to find something for mom, and she decides on a book about dolphins ‘cause, you know, dolphins are Zoe’s next big obsession after Elsa and Anna.” Rosie laughs and relaxes onto the chair arm, letting her legs dangle above the floor.
I didn’t even notice I was holding my breath, but I guess I was because as soon as I feel Rosie relax, I exhale a double lungful of stale air.
I have less to talk about than ever. I slept. I sipped soup. I took my meds. I answered some police questions. I slept. I sipped soup. I took my meds. I mean, how boring is that?
“What else?” I ask Rosie. “What else have you been doing?”
“Sofia’s parents are talking about transferring her to St. Francis. Fatima’s, too.”
“Because of that scarf-pulling asshole?”
Rosie nods. “But Sofia wants to stay at Hamilton. Especially for choir and soccer.”
Text ding. Rosie glances at her phone. “Gotta go,” she says. “Give me a joke for Zoe?”
It’s funny how I can barely remember stuff from when I got beat up, but all of those corny jokes are still stuck in my brain. “Did I already give you some bird jokes?”
“Just the one about elephants being smarter than chickens.”
“No, I mean jokes with real birds, like the kind that fly around.”
“Chickens are real birds!” Rosie says.
“Okay, so why do birds fly south for the winter?”
“Why?”
I wait. Rosie always tries to get out of guessing, but no guess, no joke. She looks up at the ceiling. I look at her.
“Ummm...because winters are warmer in the south?”
“Nooooo. Because it’s too far to walk.”
* * * * *
I WAKE TO THE SCENT of soup. Still chicken, I think. And not that I don’t like chicken soup, but I wish I could chew again. Mario comes in with a bowl of soup and a slice of bread, and clears a space on the tray. I raise the recliner.
“Wanna milkshake?” he asks. “Help replenish a little fat?”
I nod.
By the time I’ve soaked up all of the bread until it’s soft enough to eat, then tipped the bowl up to drink the rest of the soup, Mario’s back with two tall vanilla milkshakes. He pulls a chair up beside me. After a big gulp of the shake, he lets out a long, satisfied, “Aaahhh.”
“I’m practicing my culinary skills,” he says. “Francie says that when we move in together, we’ll be sharing kitchen duties. So far I’ve mastered milkshakes and cereal.”
I laugh. It hurts.
“Listen, Bro. I know you’re tired of talking about this, but you must have at least heard something from those guys the other night.”
I take another sip of milkshake. Something about the look on his face, intense concern? Curiosity? He looks like the seventeen-year-old brother who so wanted the truth from me back when I was nine. I trust him. I should tell him. But then what? The police take control? Suddenly, I realize the reason I’ve kept the Jason part of things to myself. I don’t want the police to deal with Jason. I want to deal with Jason myself. I finish the milkshake, feeling better than I have since before I got beat up. I smile at the thought of giving Jason what he has coming.
“Eddie?” Mario says. Eyebrows raised in a question. “You’re sure? Nothing?”
“Nothing,” I say. God, I hate lying to Mario, but not as much as I’d hate not getting my chance at Jason.
CHAPTER TWENTY
