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Fathers and Sons Chapter 9 The big guy grinned. “You sure, Mr. Ricci?” He flexed his fist a couple times. “Go ahead, Gordon. My brother worries too much.” He had a helluva reach. I dodged the first coupla punches, caught one just below my eye, couldn’t quite get close enough to make him pay for it. He was backing me up, he wanted me against the wall, but if I let him put me there, I might as well kiss my ass good-bye. I waded in close, taking the punches I had to take, and giving ‘em back when I could, and went around his left side, away from the nurses and the visitors. When I was out of his reach again, I went for my gun. He was no dummy. He had his in his hand almost before I had mine. There wasn’t time to think about it. Those movies you see where the two guys stand and point their guns at each other for ten minutes while they sweat…….that’s bullshit. If you stop and think about it, you’re gonna be thinking about it in heaven. Or hell. There wasn’t time to aim, I just kinda pointed the barrel in his direction and said, “I’m arresting you,” while he grinned again, blood from his nose dripping on his chin, and I fired, and then dropped, hoping to God my shot got to him before his got to me. He fired twice as he went down, once in my direction, and once up at the ceiling. I saw the asshole with the diamond ring reach inside his coat, and I rolled up and squeezed a round at him, too. He staggered, pointed a fancy little single shot pistol at me, but didn’t get to fire it. I had time to aim the second shot a little better, and he went down for good. The big guy wasn’t dead, but he wouldn’t last long. He was bleeding to beat hell. There was blood all over the fucking place, and all over me, couldn’t figure out how I coulda laid in it, but I must have……. It was real quiet. The civilians were all outta sight. You’d expect a lotta screaming and yelling, but there wasn’t any. I suppose if you work in a hospital, blood ain’t that big a deal. Toots poked her head out from behind the nurses’ desk. “Good God, Bud,” she said. More heads popped up. Everybody watched me get up off the floor. I didn’t know what to say, all I could think of was, Jesus Christ, I did it again. Always something. Pretty tired. But there was one more. Better take care of him. A war with the mob wouldn’t be real good for Bisbee. He was leaning up against the fender of his big ol’ black car when I went outside. He was in his shirt sleeves, his coat and jacket laying on the hood. “You see,” he said, “I am unarmed.” He smiled. “I am betting you’re not the kind to shoot an unarmed man.” “You lose,” I said, and raised my .38. He held his hands out, away from his body. “I am not your enemy. There will be no war. You’ve done me a great service. I was betting that you would.” OK, I knew what he was doing. He was trying to talk his way outta dying. Couldn’t blame the bum for that. I hesitated. I thought about it. Almost any other time, hesitation mighta got me killed. This time, he just kept talking. I lowered my arm. I was tired. “You were right, you know. Your father could not have stolen so much from me. A small amount, perhaps, but $100,000? No. I didn’t trust him with so much. And he thought small. You understand? So who else could it have been?” He sighed and put his hands down. “I was too angry to think clearly when it happened. I believed my brother. I trusted him. I didn’t think he would lie to me, steal from me.” He shrugged. “I was naïve. My brother wanted what I had. He took it and blamed it on someone else. “He has been pushing lately. I knew he wanted me out. Always, he wanted what I had. And then we heard about you. The man who killed his own father. He pushed me to come here. I decided to go along with him, to see what he wanted, and what could be done……. “If Gordon had succeeded in killing you, I would have gone back with my honor intact, yes, but with the necessity of finding another way to take care of my brother without tearing the family apart. This way, you have killed them both for me, I am rid of the viper in my bosom, and I can manufacture whatever story I please when I return.” “Unless you go back in a box.” He nodded. “Yes. And so my bet. Have you killed in cold blood, Deputy?” “Yeah.” “Ah. So I have miscalculated. Unless….it is you in the box.” He pointed at my feet. I looked. That was stupid, I knew better than to do that, but I felt kinda…..fuzzy. Real tired. Stupid. So I looked where he pointed. There was a pool of blood around my feet. Jesus, I thought, where did that come from? I saw the drips hitting the pool like raindrops, a fast rain, they were running off the fingers of my left hand……. “If I were you,” Ricci said, “I’d try to get back inside the hospital before you fall down.” I wanted to shoot him. I really wanted to. I was just too tired to raise my arm…… I heard a scream, distant…….and then another. Thought I probably oughta see who was screaming and do something about it……no, I oughta just shoot this bum and then go home, lay down, take a nap. The sun was real bright……. Ricci smiled. “I will leave you alone, now, Deputy. I hope never to see you again.” He picked up his jacket and put it on. “I think perhaps the money you received from your aunt was mine to begin with…….but we will call it payment for what you’ve done for me today, and leave it at that. Ciao.” Dammit. I wanted to shoot him. I kinda remember seeing my gun laying on the ground, and then I guess I passed out. It wasn’t a bad wound; well, it bled a lot, yeah, but after they got my arm sewed up, and gave me some blood to replace what I lost, I didn’t feel half bad. I never found out who did all the screaming I thought I heard. When I woke up the next day, there were half a dozen women standing around my bed looking worried, so I guess it coulda been any one of ‘em. There was Lynn, and Arbutus, and Toots; and Rowanda Bissell. Sybil, the new clerk at Lynn’s shop, was standing against the opposite wall. Roberta was there, too, with a box in her arms. “You got dinner in there?” I asked. “Smells good.” I guess I’ll never understand women for sure. Roberta began to cry, I don’t know why. Lynn laughed, kissed me…..and looked relieved. Arbutus took my hand—the one on the arm that didn’t hurt—and squeezed it tight. And then didn’t let go. Rowanda acted like she was doing nurse-type stuff to my arm, but I don’t think she really was. Toots was saying how she’d never seen anything like that, and it was so exciting, and she was more scared than she’d ever been; and nobody was listening to her. Sybil wasn’t saying anything, just looking. Staring. Rowanda said, “The doctor has ordered a soft diet for Mr. White for the next 24 hours. We can’t allow you to give him any other kind of meal. However,” she looked over at Toots, “Cynthia and I have some work to do down at the other end of the hall, and I’m afraid we’ll be occupied about an hour.” Toots looked like she wished she could stay and eat with me. She coulda stayed, but she couldn’t have eaten, there was just dinner for one in Roberta’s box. A chicken-fried steak with fried potatoes and cream gravy, along with some soggy looking peas, and a smashed slice of banana cream pie. It all tasted fine, though. One thing I have to say about Roberta, she knows what a man likes to eat. The nurses came back just after I finished eating, and scolded me. There was a lotta laughing and chattering until the women took it out into the hall so Toots could change the sheet I spilled gravy on. Rowanda put a blood pressure cuff around my arm and pumped it up. The door opened, Richard stood in the doorway. “Are you gonna be OK?” He looked scared. “Sure.” A big exhale. “The Rev’s been asking for you. Somebody mentioned something about a shootout, and he knew it was you.” ‘Course he did. “What idiot did that?” Toots looked guilty. “I didn’t exactly tell him. He overheard it, I was talking to someone else.” “Uh-huh.” “I didn’t know he was awake, or I wouldn’t have said anything. Then he asked me about it, and I just said it was a little disturbance out in the hall. I don’t know how he knew it was you, I didn’t tell him that, honest.” “OK.” I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. “I guess I better go show him I’m not dead. Let him scold me.” I had to sit still for a minute to let the room stop spinning around. “If you go anywhere, it’s going to be in a wheelchair.” Rowanda. “I’m not riding in a wheelchair, I can walk fine.” She stood in front of me, put her hands on her hips. I was sitting down, but she was pretty short, she looked me in the eye. “You’ll have to go through me, mister.” I thought about it for a minute. She didn’t back down an inch. “OK.” I figured after I got outta my room, I could do whatever I wanted. I just about fell on my ass trying to get from the bed to the chair. She could have said, “I told you so,” or “You see?” but she didn’t. Richard pushed the chair. I held on to the stand with the bottle hanging on it that was attached to my arm. “Those guys Mafia guys?” he asked. “Don’t think so.” “They mighta been, though, huh?” I shrugged. Just outside the Rev’s door, he stopped and walked around to the front of the wheelchair, so he could look me in the face. “Bud?” “Yeah?” “I know my word doesn’t mean much…….but…..I’m gonna do better.” Serious. Real serious. “OK.” He nodded. “So, next time you have a problem, you’ll be able to count on me.” “OK.” “You won’t have to do things all alone.” He opened the Rev’s door and pushed me through. He meant well, I guess. Maybe he thought me and the Rev might both die, and it scared him. I didn’t believe he’d actually straighten up, but the thought was nice. Don’t know what he meant by me being all alone; I hardly ever had a minute to myself. Surrounded by people all the time. There were days I had to go out into the desert just to hear myself think. The Rev’s bed was cranked up, so he was sitting insteada lying, but he didn’t look so good. Kinda pale, a little yellow. Grey at the same time. His eyes were closed. Richard didn’t look so good either. “Why don’t you give me ten minutes?” I said. He wiped his nose on his sleeve and nodded. Looked back over his shoulder at the Rev a coupla times before the door closed behind him. I stood up next to the Rev’s bed. “How you doin’?” I said. His eyes opened. He smiled a little. “OK,” he said. “How are you?” His voice was weak. Talking was more of an effort than the last time I saw him. “I’m OK.” I waited for him to scold me, to tell me I shouldn’t be fighting in the hospital, and give me that reproachful look, but he didn’t. “I was afraid for you,” he said. Not what I expected him to say. “Hey, I’m fine. Nothing to worry about.” He smiled. “We’re both fine. Nothing to worry about.” I was supposed to keep pretending, I was supposed to say, sure we are; I knew he was waiting for me to say that. I figured he expected me to go on trying to convince myself it was the truth……. I couldn’t say it. I was just as bad as Richard, I’d been fooling myself any way I could that he might get better, using any excuse I could find not to think about it at all, but dammit, here we both were, in our hospital gowns, and only one of us was fine. “Can’t you talk to me?” he said. I had to listen hard to hear what he was saying. He took a deep breath, sounded a little….bubbly….and then he coughed. He gasped for breath. Closed his eyes, opened them. “Are you ok?” Yeah, stupid question, but he looked funny. “Don’t be frightened for me,” he said, and coughed some more. He stopped coughing…..I listened……he didn’t say anything else; while I listened he turned a little blue……he wasn’t coughing ‘cause he wasn’t breathing. The wheelchair crashed into the bed when I shoved it outta the way getting to the door, the metal stand and the bottle went with it. I threw open the door and yelled, I don’t remember what, but Toots came running. She poked her head in just far enough to see what the Rev looked like, then she scooted back the other way. The needle in my arm held better than you’da thought it would, the yank when I tried to follow her tore it out, and then she was running back with Rowanda. I ain’t gonna tell you all that they did to the Rev, it made me gag a coupla times to watch it, but when they were done, he wasn’t blue anymore, and he was breathing. For now. My chest hurt, I was breathing like I’d run a mile. Maybe it was because I wanted to run; wanted to run away from death, and I was ready to go…..but I had to stay, running away wouldn’t help, it wasn’t me death was after this time. Don’t be frightened for me, he said. How was I supposed to do that? Death was here in the room, I could feel it, smell it, almost see it, in the corners, underfoot……couldn’t get away from it. I thought death didn’t scare me. I’d seen men cut down overseas in the war, people I knew, was friendly with; I’d seen people taken in car accidents and fires and bar fights. Sent some on their way myself. I’d had death slither up the back a’ my own neck, I’d grabbed hold of it and got a good look more than once. I shoulda been used to it. This was different. There was nothing to grab onto, nothing to fight with, nothing to do at all……. The door was still open, Richard stood in the doorway like he didn’t know whether he could come in or not; like the boogeyman might get him if he tried. Like a kid, scared to be here, scared to leave, just scared…….. “Have you been here all day?” I asked him. He nodded. “And yesterday.” He looked like he needed a drink real bad. “Are they gonna be doing stuff in here for a while?” “You wanna go home?” He wasn’t sure. “If you think it’d be ok…..” “I’ll stay. You go on home and get some sleep.” He nodded, turned around to leave. “Richard.” “Yeah?” “Don’t stop off at the bar on the way.” He’d meant to; I could see him thinking about it. “I won’t,” he said. I didn’t believe him for a minute, but unless I wanted to walk him home and lock him inside, there wasn’t much else I could do. At least he hadn’t just lied without giving it some thought first. Lynn drags me to the movies every coupla weeks, if she can. We’ve seen a lotta movies. In the movies, fear looks a lot like surprise; or sometimes it looks like anger. Once in a while, they go straight to sorrow. But actual gut-churning fear isn’t like that, you’ll never see real fear in the movies. It’s a big roiling ball in the pit of your stomach, it eats away at you, sometimes you think you might puke, and sometimes you do…….. And I hadn’t felt that kinda fear since a night years and years ago, another time when there was nothing I could do…….. There wasn’t as much time to be afraid then. It hadn’t taken any time at all that other time, and this was slow, fucking slow, but otherwise it was just the same. Just the same. I sat next to his bed after the nurses finished taping up my arm and went out of the room. They said he’d sleep for a while, and I watched him do that. Lynn came in once, and I told her to go home to the kids. Arbutus came in once, too; she kissed him on the cheek and said she was going home as well. The Rev wasn’t asleep after all; he kinda nodded when she said that, even though he didn’t open his eyes. What should you say to somebody if it’s your last chance to say anything and you know it? I’d know what to tell Lynn, maybe, but the Rev? I felt like there were words beating inside my chest wanting to get out, like birds in a locked cage. And I didn’t have the key. Toots came in once, too, did her nurse stuff with the Rev and asked me if I wouldn’t like to lay down for a while, maybe sleep, but I shook my head, and she went away. I don’t know for sure what time it was when I realized he was looking at me. The place was quiet, the lights turned off in the hall, the windows in the houses across the street were dark. It was late. “Bud.” “Don’t talk.” “…..then you…...” It was tough. I didn’t know how to say it. He just waited. Finally, “I don’t want you to go.” Yeah, I know, not too good, but I was lucky I got that much out. The Rev whispered something I didn’t catch. “What?” He curled his fingers, did it again. “…..here…….come…...” I stood up, bent over and got closer. He raised his hand, clasped it around the back of my neck. He was too weak to keep it there himself for long, so I put my hand over it. Just to help him. “…….here, boy……” he said. “….be fine…..” “Rev---“ “…..proud…..” “---don’t----“ “…..my boy…..” Almost a question, waiting for an answer; waiting for me to say it. Didn’t know for sure if I’d be able to get it out, but he was waiting. “Yeah.” A smile, and a tiny nod, and he went back to sleep. I put his hand down on the bed, sat back down in the chair and stopped fighting……… We took turns sitting with the Rev for three more days, me and Arbutus and Lynn, Richard and Lucius and Rowanda; Jones took a turn, and so did Roberta, and Sam from the hardware store. He didn’t wake up again. Arbutus was with him when he stopped breathing; she didn’t run for the nurses like I did, she let him go. The lines in her face were deeper when she came outta his room, the shadows harsher; she looked old. I let the fear squeeze my heart just once when I looked at her, and then I beat it back…….not yet, not yet……. I miss him every day.
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