Suzy's Case: A Novel Page 24

  June tries to calm me. “Relax. Please, just relax. We have two weeks from your discharge date to put in opposing papers—the judge insists on seeing a copy of your discharge documents, by the way.”

  “That was nice of Judge Schneider to give me more time, given my coma and all.”

  “You think? I went to court on my own and had a little talk with Judge Leslie myself.”

  “June,” I advise her, “it’s inappropriate for you to talk to the assigned judge, especially in the absence of opposing counsel.”

  “I told you to relax. I called up Winnie ‘the Weasel’ McGillicuddy myself, and she was present for the conference. It wasn’t ex parte, as you lawyers like to call it.”

  “Good job, June, and good use of legalese.” Then another thought comes to mind. “What about the Eldo?”

  “Barely a scratch. That thing’s a tank. It saved your life.”

  A nurse comes in carrying a deep metal pan and doesn’t even look at me. She goes to the sink, filling it with water and a soapy solution. She turns around, looks at me, and jumps back. “Oh my God! You’re up!”

  “Yes I am.” I make an attempt at a smile.

  “I’m Nurse Rena. When did you wake? How are we feeling?”

  “A few minutes ago, and I don’t know how ‘we’ are feeling, but I’m feeling like I got hit by a truck.”

  “That’s understandable, but it’s wonderful that you’re awake and talking.” She turns to June. “Has he gotten excited yet? When patients come out of a coma it’s not unusual that they become keyed up and a bit agitated.”

  “Those are all good words to describe his behavior,” answers June.

  “Just as I suspected. Listen, it’s standard care that I give you a little pain medication to ease you back into reality, especially with all your other injuries. Do I have your consent?”

  “Give me the pills. I can’t wait.”

  “No pills for you, not in your condition.” Nurse Rena walks out of the room and back in just as fast. She has a syringe in her hand. She walks over to my IV line and injects the solution through a port. I feel instant warmth all over my body, which now seems a bit heavier.

  “The doctors will be in just as soon as I report that you’re back in the world of consciousness. Would you like me to do that now?” Nurse Rena asks. “Or after I give you a sponge bath?”

  “After, please. I’m in no mood to talk. In fact, could you make sure that no one comes in here for at least an hour after my sponge bath? I just want to relax. That stuff you injected is a miracle drug. I’m floating.”

  “Fine, that’s actually a good idea.” The nurse looks at June. “Miss, would you mind leaving the room?”

  “Oh, I’ll do that for you. I’m a nurse of sorts, too, and take care of a much less compliant patient for a living.”

  Nurse Rena tilts her head. “Is that all right with you?” she asks me.

  “Yeah. That’s perfectly fine. Thank you.”

  Nurse Rena puts the pan down on my side table, hands June the sponge, steps out of my bed area, and draws the curtain for privacy.

  June opens my hospital-issue pajama top, one button at a time. “Nice chest.” She dips the sponge into the basin and fills it with water. She lets the excess drip out, then moves it over my chest. She puts a little pressure on the sponge so that warm water trickles out down onto my chest. “Take your time and get better,” she softly admonishes. “The case isn’t going anywhere. We’ve waited this long. We can wait a little longer.” She dips and drips a few more times, then applies the sponge directly to my chest and starts moving it in a slow circular fashion.

  “So, what do you think of my w-wife?” I mumble, taking note my speech is slurred from the painkiller.

  “She’s a beautiful woman and tough as nails.”

  “You’re m-money, June. You got her p-pegged,” I burble. “That sponge feels g-good can you keep doing it that w-way?”

  June smiles slightly. “Sure. How does this feel?” she asks as she moves the sponge gradually downward onto my belly, keeping a slow circular motion.

  “Feels g-good,” I murmur, struggling to keep my eyes open, then realize, looking down, I got a pop tent going. I draw attention to it to save myself the embarrassment of June mentioning it first. “Oh shit. The Governor’s come to town,” I say, weights on my lids, realizing I didn’t stutter there, strange.

  “The Governor?”

  “Pet name from an ex-girlfriend,” I explain.

  “Is that normal?”

  “Is what normal?”

  “To have an erection after coming out of a coma, with a broken ankle and recovering from surgery on your testicle?”

  “It’s obviously normal for me.”

  June dips and drips again, but this time she targets the Governor, making him look like a participant in a wet T-shirt contest. Nice.

  June puts the sponge down, then slides her hand into a sensitive spot. I realize I haven’t gone ten days without an orgasm since discovering myself during the summer of eighth grade.

  “June,” I point out, “I had surgery down there. You’ve now established I can get hard. Taking it any further may not be such a good idea.”

  “Your chart doesn’t have any orders to the contrary,” she teases.

  “Listen, I’m pretty sure the surgeon wouldn’t write an order not to jerk the patient off.”

  June looks me in the eye. “Just relax and let June practice a little nursing magic.”

  For the next five or so minutes not a word is spoken. Finally, after working me over with the sponge—dip and drip, then dip and drip again—the Governor is close in color to June’s handbag, which today is dark purple. Producing from its depths a travel-sized bottle of moisturizer, June takes hold of the Governor just under his helmet and applies circumferential cream coverage. No pulling or tugging, however. Next June wraps her left hand around the bottom of my cock just above the first stitch and pulls down, making things skin tight, though still without tugging. Now with her creamed right hand she makes an okay sign just under the head. With the perfect amount of tension she slowly motions up, then down.

  I spontaneously erupt. The unofficial tug count is two. “Tug count”—that’s a funny double entendre.

  June wipes me clean, just the way Tyler does. Oh, Tyler, I crossed the line. I didn’t think I had it in me. “I’ll leave you alone for now, but I expect to be the first call you make after discharge.” I don’t say a word. She turns, opens the curtain, and leaves.

  The next morning, I’m awakened by Nurse Rena. “The police are here to see you.”

  “Send them …” Before I get out the word in two officers enter and approach.

  “Good morning,” the older guy with the name badge that reads PATEL says. They are from the Westchester County Police Department. “So what happened?” Officer Patel asks. I see his partner is called O’Malley.

  “I’m told I was a victim of road rage,” I answer, displaying my uncertainty.

  “I want to know what you remember, not what you were told,” says the officer.

  “The last thing I remember clearly is smoking a cigar with a homeless man named Horatio Cohen at the East Thirty-Fourth Street Heliport. The guy gave me some sound legal advice. After that, my memory is a little fuzzy.”

  “Tell me the fuzzy stuff,” Patel urges.

  “I kind of remember being hit from behind on the Parkway. Then I felt another ram, clearly indicating someone was trying to run me off the road. But I have some memory, a really fuzzy one, of there being an extra vehicle. Like, if it hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t be talking to you now.”

  “Are you saying three cars were involved in this incident?” asks Patel.

  “Yeah.” I wait a moment for Patel to finish jotting down his note in his memo pad. “Are you going to tell me who the guy trying to kill me was?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I know he crashed and died. So who the fuck was he?”

  Patel looks a
t O’Malley, then back at me. “Got any enemies?”

  “None that I know of.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Well, I had a disgruntled client with a criminal record that wasn’t so happy about the news I shared with him. He was in my office not so long ago.”

  Then I realize it was longer ago than I think. As I’m trying to assimilate this, Patel asks, “What news?”

  It seems Patel is short on answers but full of questions.

  “I had to tell him his wife thought he was a shitty lover and things of that nature, trying to force him to take a settlement, which, if I recall correctly, he still hasn’t taken.”

  “You were involved with her?”

  “If you’re asking if his wife was cheating on him with me, the answer is no. I’m familiar with their marital sexual history from her medical records.”

  “What’s your client’s name?”

  “That’s privileged,” I say, firmly hoping it will prompt the officer to be gratuitous.

  Patel bites. “Is it Bert Beecher?”

  “You said it, not me. Privilege preserved. That’s the guy.”

  Patel looks at his partner, then back at me. “Then you did have an enemy, but you don’t anymore. He’s the dead guy who ran you off the road.”

  “Why didn’t you say so in the first place? Privilege dies with the client.” After an angry pause, I can’t contain myself. “Fucking Henry Benson!” I yell. I know what’s on Patel’s mind, so I beat him to the punch. “Henry Benson is the attorney who referred Beecher to me. I’ve had a lot of problems with his clients, but this is the first guy who tried to kill me with premeditation.”

  “Can you give us any information on the other vehicle you think you remember?”

  “I got nothing for you. Zero.”

  “You know how you got from the accident scene to this hospital?”

  I shrug my shoulders and pose my own question. “Ambulance?”

  Patel shakes his head. “Nope. You were found unconscious on the sidewalk right outside. Someone rendered first aid to you at the scene of the accident, which stopped your bleeding and saved your life, transported you here, and left you on the curb in front of the emergency room entrance. My guess would be the driver of the mystery vehicle. Looks like we’re going to close the case. You can’t charge a dead guy with a crime.” Patel and O’Malley turn and leave.

  Within moments Nurse Rena runs in. “Well? What happened?”

  “Not much. Why are you so interested?”

  “I don’t mean to be nosy, but we don’t get a lot of police activity in this hospital, so it’s exciting. Who’s the guy who tried to kill you and ended up dead?”

  “He was a secret agent,” I whisper conspiratorially.

  “For real?” Nurse Rena asks.

  “For real. He was Siegfried, one of the top guys from KAOS, a secret crime organization at the center of the Axis of Evil. More dangerous than Al Qaeda and the Taliban.”

  “Wow! Why was he trying to kill you?”

  “If I tell you, you’ll be at risk.”

  “Then don’t tell me. Come on, you’re getting out of bed. I’m taking you down to rehab for your initial evaluation so they can set up a course of treatment for you.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I respond. I struggle to move, then look to the nurse for an answer.

  “You haven’t used those muscles in a while. It’s going to take a little to get your strength back.” I nod, but didn’t realize when I did it would take me near three minutes to transfer from the bed to the wheelchair. It’s not just muscle stiffness from disuse, but also the delicate tomatoes in my stitched-up cinch sack.

  We arrive down at the rehab facility of this smallish Westchester hospital and Nurse Rena stops pushing me at the closed double doors. She walks around and pulls the handle of the right one, which locks into an open position. Before me is one large, empty, rectangular room, with all its rehab equipment set out around the perimeter with a large blue gym mat in the middle.

  Nurse Rena has wheeled me two feet forward when a young child on crutches glides by us from behind, saying, “Excuse me, mister.” He pulls the other door open with his left hand while balancing on the crutch under his right pit as the other stick leans against his body. That kid has skill. He quick-crutches in and over to the light panel, flicking six switches on in rapid-fire succession. He rests the crutches against the wall and hops to the mat on his left leg, the right one having been amputated.

  “That’s Charlie,” Nurse Rena says. “He lost his leg to a bone cancer,” which I had assumed given his hairlessness. I feel her grab the handgrips of my wheelchair and I say, “I got it,” preferring to wheel myself in. I’m pretty sure that’s the first thing I’ve done for myself since awakening. I stop a few feet in to watch Charlie. He has a below-the-knee amputation of his right leg but that ain’t stopping this rascal. He’s jumping around on the mat like he’s some kind of gifted gymnast. The kid is incredible, hopping along, then throwing himself into a one-handed cartwheel, then into some kind of tumble. My amazement is interrupted by a minor startle from behind.

  “How do you feel today, Mr. Wyler?” asks a deep male voice I don’t recognize. The source comes around and his tag reads: WINSTON FOREMAN, PHYSICAL THERAPIST. “I’m here to evaluate you for purposes of setting up a course of physical therapy. I’m also going to teach you how to most efficiently perform your adult daily living tasks such as wheelchair transfers, using crutches, negotiating stairs, showering, and things of that nature.”

  “Thanks,” I respond. “Could you step to the side, please?” I ask, giving Winston the hand motion to move out of my way. He looks behind at Charlie, now doing one-legged jump rope, with double jumps and hand crossover’s.

  “That boy is amazing,” Winston Foreman says. “Nothing will ever stop that child, certainly not cancer. Sad case, he’s only seven.”

  Nurse Rena chimes in, “Yes, there’s something inside of him that just won’t let the obstacles of life slow him down.” That statement struck a nerve—not a peripheral one, my cord.

  “Winston,” I say, “when do you think I’ll be ready for discharge?”

  “I have no idea. I haven’t evaluated you yet.”

  “How about you, Nurse Rena—when?”

  “I’d project two weeks at the minimum.”

  “I see,” I answer, knowing instantly what must be done. “Winston,” I say, “I appreciate you coming down here, but I won’t be needing your services. What I would like you to do for me, though, is call an orthopedist to meet me in the area where they apply casts.”

  “But—”

  “No buts about it, Winston. If you want to help me, that’s how you can help.” He shrugs, then turns and leaves as I keep watching this boy, Charlie. This amazing boy, Charlie, who won’t let the loss of his leg get in his way.

  “Nurse Rena, I’m going to get myself to the casting area, what floor is that on?”

  “Two. But—”

  “Please, no buts, I have some unfinished business that cannot wait. I want you to meet me there and bring some papers for me to sign. Do you know what papers I’m talking about?”

  “Discharge documents, AMA?”

  “That’s right, Nurse Rena, I’m leaving here against medical advice. By the way, what day is today?”

  “Saturday.”

  “Thanks. I’ll be going to my home, then. Could you arrange for a cab? My address is in my chart.”

  “You’re crazy, Mr. Wyler.”

  “No, not crazy, I just have purpose and passion that was run off the parkway, so to speak. But I’m on the road again,” I say, admiring Charlie. She turns to look, following the line of my sight. He’s on a stationary bike, pumping his leg, spinning a million miles an hour with determination on his face.

  14.

  I arrive in the city bright and early Monday morning to make up for lost time. The projected two weeks of hospitalization is totally ridiculous in light of the fact that I alrea
dy spent ten days running the course of my coma. The weekend at my highly mortgaged boot camp was just the kind of rehab I might have expected. Tyler had me organizing the basement and moving the backyard furniture around, the better to be viewed from the kitchen window. I’m surprised how mobile I am in the walking boot I had the orthopedists put on me before leaving the hospital so I wouldn’t have to mess with crutches. By Sunday evening my wife was making out a list of chores for me to accomplish while at home so I thought my chances of recovering were greater at work.

  As I enter my office, I’m just as surprised by Lily’s early presence as she is by mine. She looks up and freezes as if Casper the Friendly Ghost were paying a visit. She’s staring at me with those big brown eyes, and they’re now forming puddles. “You’re alive! I mean, out of the hospital! I mean, here. ¡Dios mío! ¡Dios mío!”

  “Correct on all four accounts. Say what you mean. You work for a lawyer, you know. Our words are our stock-in-trade.”

  “What are you doing here? I mean, when did you—?”

  “I work here. Remember? My name is on the door, the letterhead, the business cards, the website, and on the signature portion of your paycheck, just to mention a few.”

  She gives me a look. “I see you’ve recovered, so I’ll drop my false act of concern.”

  “Say what you want, but I saw genuine worry in your eyes. The tears forming, the glassiness, and your lip—that began to quiver, too.”

  “I was faking. When did you regain consciousness? When were you discharged?”

  “Conscious on Friday, discharged on Saturday, completed home work release on Sunday, and here I am. Let that be a lesson to you.”

  “Yeah, you’re fully recovered.”

  I look at her desk. “What’s been going on around here?”

  “The cops investigating your accident came by. As per your standing instructions, I dummied up on every question. I settled three cases you had been negotiating, and the clients all came in and signed their releases. Best of all, I think you’re going to love the responses we got from the attorney defending the hospital on the June Williams case and from one of the cardiac monitor manufacturers I sent the claim letter to.”