It took me a few minutes to come fully awake and they gave me some Demerol to take the edge off my various pains. A doctor filled me in. Apparently the knife had severed a couple of minor veins but other than that, had touched nothing important. My spleen, kidney, and lung were all fine. My large and small intestines were fine. I was, in short, very lucky, suffering little more than a flesh wound. I would be kept in the hospital overnight for observation and released the next morning. After a week or so of taking it easy, I could go back to school. He then suggested I stay away from knives.
"You're parents and your sister are outside." He told me. "But before they come in the police would like to speak with you for a few minutes."
"Okay." I told him, nodding, examining the catheter protruding from beneath the sheets with distaste. How long until they took it out?
The police officer was older. I didn't recognize him. Probably he'd retired before I made my debut on the streets of Spokane where I would, over time, get to know most of them on a first-name basis. He was wearing a uniform that would be changed in a few years and carrying a thirty-eight in his holster, a gun that would be exchanged for nine millimeters soon. He looked me up and down for a moment, his gaze telling me that he'd seen it all and heard it all. I was familiar with the gaze. I'd acquired it myself.
"So Billy," He said, opening a notebook. "Suppose you tell me what happened today?"
I knew what he was expecting. He was expecting me to say that I had no idea who had done this to me or why. That I hadn't so much as caught a glimpse of the person responsible. That I couldn't identify them in a line-up. In short, he expected me to act like a typical teenaged victim.
"Well officer Morgan," I said, reading his nametag. "I was stabbed by a kid named Richard Fairview."
"Really?" He said, looking at me.
"Really." I nodded. "He came up behind me at my locker and just as I turned around, he stuck a buck knife in my side. I fought back and managed to keep myself from getting stabbed twice. In fact, I kneed the motherfucker so hard in the balls that I think I dislocated my knee in the process."
Officer Morgan chuckled. "Well well." He said. "This is different. So tell me, why did Mr. Fairview stab you?"
"Because he's a piece of shit thug and I've been screwing with him for the last few days."
"Screwing with him?" He asked, making a notation on his pad.
"I'm sure you've got reports of his little trip to the hospital the other day." I said. "He's a shake-down artist at the high school, ripping off kids as they come in. Perhaps your department has had dealings with him before?"
"Oh yes." Morgan nodded, looking at me as if he was seeing an optical illusion. "We have quite a file on Mr. Fairview. Are you telling me you sent him to the hospital the other day? Because if you are, I think you might want to get your parents in here and have me advise you of your rights. What happened to the gentleman the other day was a felonious assault."
"He tried to rip me off." I said. "And when I refused to give him money he tried to assault me. I simply took defensive measures. Very stern defensive measures."
"I see." The cop nodded, looking at me now with something like respect. "Please go on."
"Well, after that I've been making a point to tease him every time I see him." I shrugged. "I guess I went a bit too far and he decided to take action."
"That's a delicate way of putting it." He said. "It's hard to believe a little guy like you did all of that damage to that big asshole."
"I know a little karate." I said. "Are you going to arrest me?"
"No." The cop said. "I ran your record and Fairview's record while I was waiting to interview you. Fairview has got multiple arrests for everything from assault to drugs to attempted rape. He's a pukebag in the making. You, on the other hand, come from a middle-class family, have no arrest record whatsoever, in fact you're not in our system at all. All of the witnesses, and there was a surprising amount willing to talk about this thing, say that Fairview came up from behind and struck you with the knife and that you were acting in complete self-defense. Your friend Mike confirms your story. Fairview's story is among the most ridiculous I've ever heard. He says that you attacked him with the knife as he walked by, he took it away from you and stabbed you in self-defense." The cop gave me a sly smile. "He's a couple of rooms over you know."
"Yeah?" I asked.
"Yep." Morgan nodded with satisfaction plainly visible on his face. "Don't tell anyone I told you but you seem trustworthy. The docs say he might lose those testicles, you got him THAT hard. Even if he don't lose 'em, it's doubtful that he'll ever have kids." The cop looked to the heavens. "Imagine that, that little shitbag won't get to breed more little assholes. Goddamit sometimes there IS justice in this fucked-up world." He gazed at me. "So here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna write up your story pretty much as you told it. But I would suggest highly that you profess ignorance to the little incident the other day. You're the only one that's told me about it. Even Fairview himself didn't mention it. So, to avoid complications, how about we just leave that little tidbit out of the story? Makes things much easier for everyone. You don't know WHY he attacked you by your locker, he just did. Okay?"
"Okay." I agreed, fascinated by the way he was talking to me.
"Good." Morgan nodded. "I'm gonna charge him with assault with a deadly weapon. In light of his previous record he'll get a year or so in juvie. It goes without saying that he'll be expulsed from school. So congratulations hero. You got rid of one first class, A-number one dirtbag.
I might put you in for a goddam public service award."
He took another twenty minutes or so to interview me thoroughly about the incident. He thanked me again and then left the room. A few minutes later my parents came in with Tracy in tow. Mom looked as if she'd been crying. So did Tracy I saw. Even Dad looked as if he'd aged since I'd seen him that morning. I felt sorrow and shame for having put them through this ordeal.
"Billy?" Mom said, coming forward and stroking my hair.
"Yeah Mom?" I asked. "I'm all right, really."
She gulped. "This isn't because of, well, drugs is it?"
So that is how I spent the one-week anniversary of my recycling in a hospital bed. They kept me doped up throughout the night but I still found it hard to sleep. My mind kept turning back to the fact that I'd been stabbed in this life but that I hadn't been stabbed in my previous life. The implications of that were starkly frightening. I was not invulnerable. All bets were off. I could just as easily be killed here as I could have in my own when. I could die before I turned thirty-two!
Since I'd come back and changed things from their natural order anything could now happen. Anything. The risks I'd taken so far now gave me the shivers. Riding in Raisin and later Mike's car without a seatbelt on with an intoxicated driver at the wheel. Playing games with dangerous bullies at school. Even playing mind games with my teachers. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have really thought that I was safe? Had I actually been thinking of myself as a superhero before Richie had struck me?
I made my second solemn vow since returning. I vowed that I would be careful. I was having too much fun to die.
"Are you SURE you'll be okay Billy?" Mom asked me for perhaps the fiftieth time. "We can still cancel our plans."
"No, no Mom." I insisted once more. "I'm healing up just fine. I get to go back to school on Monday. Really, I'll be fine."
It was Saturday night. I'd been home from the hospital for a week and a half, bored out of my mind, unable to leave the house or do much of anything besides lie in bed and let my wounds heal. Mom had taken off work to take care of me and had fawned over me for the past nine days. I had soup and sandwiches delivered to me in bed, I had sodas brought to me whenever I wished. I was surprised I was allowed to go to the bathroom by myself. I love my mother dearly, I really do, but after nine days she was starting to get on my nerves. Saturday night was the night of her company's annual awards banquet, an event that she and dad attended every year and would usually come home from in the wee hours of the morning in a cab they were so drunk. The last thing in the world I wanted was for them to stay home. I needed a little peace.