A MAN WITH a thick gray mustache and cigarette-stained teeth said, "I saw his eyes open; I saw 'em open."
A woman next to the man was doing something to my stomach. Something was over my face, and my throat killed.
I didn't know where I was. I tried to scream, but I couldn't. I was fucking freezing.
I woke up, still very weak. I turned my head to the right and saw the tubes or IVs or whatever was connected to my body.
A nurse appeared over me and said, smiling, "Look who's awake."
I couldn't speak.
"This'll make you feel better," she said. A few minutes later I was dreaming again.
The next time I opened my eyes I was angry because my throat still killed. I pressed the call button on the string next to my bed, and a Haitian or West Indian nurse came. I lifted my hand toward my mouth, as if lifting a cup to drink.
"Sorry, you won't be able to drink for a while longer. Let me check your stitches."
The nurse lifted my gown and examined my stomach area.
"Looking good," she said.
She said that a doctor was going to see me soon, and she left the room.
I stared at the TV hanging over my bed, which was blasting CNN. About an hour later, a skinny, balding doctor who looked about five years younger than me came into my room. He looked at my chart, then said to me, "I know you can't talk, so just nod yes or no. Can you do that?"
I didn't feel like having to talk to this asshole, but I figured if I answered his questions he'd leave me alone sooner. I nodded slowly.
"You're a very lucky man," he said. "Do you remember what happened to you?"
I nodded again.
"That's good," he said, "that's very good. Do you remember how it happened?"
I changed my mind I didn't feel like cooperating. I shook my head.
"You don't know how it happened?"
I nodded.
"Ah, so you know how it happened, you just don't know who did it to you."
I looked away, shaking my head.
"Well, your injury was quite severe," the doctor went on. "You lost quite a bit of blood, and the EMS workers said you didn't have a pulse when they arrived at the scene. You had two transfusions and seem to have stabilized, although your spleen was ruptured and you sustained a serious stomach injury. Physically, you're doing much better, but you suffered a period of anoxia, a cutoff of blood flow to the brain, the effects of which we'll need to monitor. But, I have to say, you're a lucky man, Mr. Miller. If that homeless man didn't find you and call for help, you probably no, you definitely wouldn't7ve made it."
I remembered seeing the homeless man lifting me up and dragging me out of the park. I'd been standing off to the side with Barbara, watching it all happen.
"By the way," the doctor continued, "there're quite a large number of reporters downstairs. I had to comment on your condition, but I'm trying to respect your privacy as much as possible. There's also a Detective Romero who wants to speak with you, but I told him that wouldn't be possible until we remove you from the respirator, which should be later today."
I tried to ask the doctor if I'd been legally dead, but with the tube in my mouth I couldn't speak.
"Don't waste your energy," the doctor said. "Just get some rest."
That night, after I was taken off the respirator, Detective Romero insisted on questioning me. He pulled up a chair next to my bed, but I looked away, refusing to make eye contact.
"How you feeling?" he asked.
I continued staring away.
"Take this," he said. "I know it's hard for you to talk, so I figured you could write down answers to my questions."
I looked over and saw he was holding a pad and a pen out to me. I hesitated before taking them from him.
"Who shot you?" he asked.
I wrote on the pad, I don't remember.
"What were you doing in the park?" he asked.
I underlined what I had already written.
"Were you going to meet somebody? Maybe a friend, a drug dealer?"
I underlined the words two more times and added, Leave me the fuck alone.
Romero continued to question me, but I stuck to my story that I didn't remember anything that had happened after I left my office. Romero finally got frustrated and said he'd come talk to me again in a couple of days, and then he left.
I knew Romero hadn't bought my amnesia story, but I was going to stick with it anyway. The idea had come to me earlier in the day if I kept my mouth shut about who had shot me, Kenny wouldn't be able to blackmail me anymore. Now we had something on each other if he tried to blackmail me, I could have him arrested for attempted murder. As for the police, I'd just continue to play dumb about everything and eventually they'd leave me alone.
I slept miserably. I woke up every few minutes with a dry, irritated throat, and they must not've been giving me enough Percocet, because my entire body killed. In the morning, after my first solid food in nearly three days, my strength started to return. Around noon, a short-haired, very thin, dykey-looking woman came into my room. She said she was a neuropsychologist. After she asked me to say my name, my age, what city and state I was in, the date, and a bunch of other things, she made me repeat numbers and words back to her.
"Okay," she said. "Now turn over the paper, hand me the pen, and point to your nose."
I handed her the pen, pointed to my nose, then turned over the paper, but I only screwed up because I was bored stiff and just wanted her to leave me alone. After asking me some more dumb questions and having me identify pictures and shapes, the woman explained that I was suffering from the aftereflects of anoxia. She said my memory would probably improve over time, but that I'd continue to exhibit on-going symptoms, such as irritability, impulsiveness, and disinhibition. As she spoke to me, I just stared at her, half smiling, thinking, Who the hell did she think she was kidding? She wanted to bill my insurance company for as much as she could, so she was making it out like I had brain damage.
There was nothing wrong with my brain. My brain was perfect.
Later, a doctor examined me and checked my charts and told me that, assuming there were no complications, I'd be discharged from the hospital in a few weeks. I'd have to do about a month of rehab, and then I'd be back home, as good as new.
In the afternoon Aunt Helen visited. When I saw her wrinkled face and maroon hair, I remembered what an annoying old bitch she was. I didn't feel like getting her sympathy or listening to her nagging me to see psychiatrists and grief counselors so I lied and told her I was too exhausted to see her. Thank God she left quickly.
A few minutes later I started to panic when I realized I didn't know where my wallet was. My pants had been taken off and I feared that my wallet had been lost or stolen.
"Where's my wallet?" I screamed. "Where the fuck's my wallet!"
An aide, an old Chinese woman, came into the room and said, "What's wrong?"
"My wallet," I said. "Where the hell is it?"
"Your personal items are in this drawer," she said.
She opened the night table drawer and handed me the wallet. I immediately opened it and checked behind my driver's license and, thank God, the picture was still there. I kissed it twice; then I propped it up against the phone on the night table so I could look at it all the time.
After the dinner trays were collected, the fat, ugly nurse entered my room to give me my medication.
"Hey, where the hell's my juice?" I said. "I asked for more apple juice an hour ago."
"I'll bring it right away," she said.
A few minutes later Angie arrived. I immediately noticed the weight she had gained in her face and that her mustache looked darker than ever. I wasn't in the mood to see her.