Another Frank Fragment, Part IV
"Hello, Danny," Frank's voice, soft, caused Danny's eyes to flutter open.
"Hi. Who are you?"
"Frank Donovan. How are you feeling?"
Danny grimaced. "Not good. They said I might not be able to walk again." It was a statement but Frank picked up the question. Danny's green eyes, flecked with brown, glanced over at Frank, who was sitting in a wheelchair at the level of Danny's chest.
Frank caught the look, and understood. Danny was upset. Becoming paralyzed in a car accident was no joke, and it would require stamina from even the most stoic of humans.
Frank was qualified to deal with children as a psychologist. Although he was a specialist in criminal behaviour, children had always fascinated Frank. Even in his own childhood, he'd taken great interest in figuring out the motivations of the kids he went to school went.
His first half-term paper for his undergrad psych at Dartmouth had been on children and their reactions to stress. He'd always been able to handle stress well (although the recents events at the bank concerned him), and he had wanted to look in-depth at the reaction of stress in children.
He now looked at Danny with his dark brown eyes. Hope flared there. Danny was a child and he was trusting the adults in his life. Frank was an adult, and although he wasn't in Danny's life, nevertheless Frank was still an authority figure in Danny's life.
And right now, he represented hope to Danny. Here was an adult who wasn't connected to him. Frank chose his words carefully. He decided to ask Danny a series of questions.
"Do you remember the car accident?"
"Yeah. My dad was driving on Shore Drive. The other guy came around the corner."
"Did you see the other car?" Frank was inwardly cringing at the guilty Danny's father must be feeling with the knowledge Danny would not walk again.
"Yeah. It was a 79 Camaro, flame red."
"You're into cars!" Frank made this as an exclamation, hoping he'd found a reasonable entry point at which to insert the knowledge Danny wouldn't walk again.
"Sure am! I've loved cars ever since I could remember. Have an entire collection of Hot Wheels. My dad even found the very first Hot Wheel car being auctioned on Ebay. Paid a lot for it and found out it's worth even more!" Danny's voice got excited and a flush came over his face. The tongs to help hold his neck straight were digging into Danny's forehead and Frank saw the beginnings of a large purple bruise.
"Keep that car in a safe place. In twenty years, that car will be worth tons more than it is now!" Frank could see Danny try to nod.
"Don't try to nod; you'll only dislodge the tongs in your skull," Frank said. Then he asked, "The Camaro was going fast?"
"Yea. I twisted around in the seat to watch him."
"Were you wearing a seat belt?" Frank asked.
"Yeah. Dad said the selt belt was loose, so I adjusted it. The doctors said you can see where the belt bit into my chest and left a bruise."
"And you remember when the Camaro hit your dad's car?"
"Yeah, I saw the car coming straight at us. I tried to yell," Danny looked at Frank, fear in his eyes. "Am I going to walk again?" he asked Frank plainly.
Frank considered the question. He knew Danny wanted to know his fate, and he knew that kids who were old enough to ask the question were old enough to learn the answer. He decided he wouldn't couch his answer with another question, but he would answer Danny succinctly.
"I'm sorry," Frank's voice was soft and his eyes looked into Danny's with a sorrow that Danny could feel.
Danny closed his eyes and sighed. "I knew it. Dad wouldn't tell me. The doctors wouldn't tell me."
"I bet they told you things like "we'll see how things are" or "we don't know the answer yet"."
"Yeah! How did you know?"
"I'm a psychologist."
Danny shot him a sharp look. Frank couldn't help but smile. He'd often used that look when one of his team members annoyed him.
"You were sent down here?" he asked Frank.
Frank laughed, hoping to relieve some of the tension. "No. I work with the Justice Department. I catch the bad guys."
Now Danny eyed him. "The bad guys shoot you up?"
"Yes. Lost three pints of blood. I was brought in the ER just a short time before you were."
"I don't remember the ER much. I do remember one of the nurses saying I'd never walk again. But I knew that when I heard the crunch of my back. I actually felt my legs go numb," Danny said. "Will I get feeling back?" That sudden hope flared in his brown-flecked green eyes and he looked at Frank.
"No. The injury to the spinal cord is far too severe. When the Camaro crunched your dad's car, you were flung forward and your spinal cord was snapped in two at the L-7. That's about the middle of your back," Frank said, anticipating Danny's next question.
For his part, Danny just looked thoughtful. A tear slipped from his left eye. Frank took a Kleenex from the small rolling table next to Danny's bed (not that he'll be using it, Frank thought) and he gently wiped the tear from Danny's eye.
Frank rolled the wheelchair a bit closer to Danny's bed.
"Would you like some water?" Frank asked, picking up the glass with the long, bended straw. "Don't nod, just blink once," Frank admonished in his soft voice. He held up the straw next to Danny's mouth, careful not to show the pain he felt in his left shoulder. Danny took a long sip, and swallowed.
"Thanks," he said. He was quiet for a few moments, and Frank knew he was absorbing the information he'd learned--confirmed, Frank corrected--about his condition. Frank let him ruminate.
"Tell me about the bad guy who shot you," he said as a statement.
"It's pretty bloody," Frank commented.
"I like cops and robbers."
"Oh do you?" Frank teased, a playfullness in his eyes. Danny grinned at Frank's grin. Grins were infectious.
"It's a pretty complicated case," Frank tried to explain.
"It's not like I'm going anywhere soon. Not with these tongs in my head," Danny said to Frank as Frank's eyes looked at Danny.
Just then, the nurse came into Danny's cubicle of a room in the ICU unit.
"Okay, young man. You've come out of surgery yesterday to put those tongs in your head and now it's time for you to get some sleep."
Danny started to protest, but a sharp look from Frank stopped him.
"You'll come back and tell me how you got shot by the bad guys?"
"You bet!" Frank promised, that playful light twinkling in his eyes.
"Not until tomorrow," the nurse admonished. Frank shot her a look but she shot him back the same look. Frank decided not to protest. The nurse administered a medication into Danny's IV line.
"You'll stay until I go to sleep?" Danny asked.
"Yes I will. I'll even start off the story."
Danny smiled. His teeth were white and even, evidently a product of extensive dental work.
"It began six weeks ago, when my unit first received a tip about a gang of bad guys," Frank watched Danny trying to fight off the sleep induced by the medication. He reached over, careful to conceal the pain he felt from his own surgical wound, and adjusted the tongs on Danny's forehead.
"The bad guys were trying to move something into this country. They'd picked a unique way of doing it...by sailboat. Their co-horts disguised themselves as yachties."
Danny's voice, murmurring asked, "Yachties?"
"The people whose lives revolve around their yachts. Most live in their yachts year round and they love to sail the world," Frank responded.
Danny murmurred in coherently, the sedative taking effect. Frank intoned on, in his deeply accented voice, knowing Danny wasn't focusing on the words, but on the sound of his voice--a deep relaxation technique which Frank had learned in his undergraduate days at Dartmouth. Knowing the sedative would take effect soon, Frank kept telling part of his tale.
"The contraband would be stored in the bilges of the yachts. The luxurious boats would be sailed into ports like Miami and New York. Once the yachts cleared customs, the underwater crews went to work. Using scuba gear, they took out the contraband from the bilges, and sometimes from the latine of the yachts. The bad guys slipped the contraband parcels into simple backpacks and merely walked out of the marina with millions of dollars in their proverbial pockets."
Frank kept intoning. He noted how Danny's breathing evened out, and even Nurse Romano was listening intently. Frank's voice, spoken softly, had a relaxing effect and some of the tension went out of Nurse Romano's voice.
"What happened next?" she softly asked.
"After a while, someone at the marina noted that the same boats had a lot of cruises. And that same someone," Frank's voice, now very soft, intoned, "noted that the same people were carrying the same type of backpacks. We were called in."
Frank noted that Danny's breathing had evened out. He himself was feeling extraordinarily tired from his exertion so soon after his surgery but he kept it up.
"We posted a drug sniffing dog at the marina--tethered him to one of the docks. He was trained to bark at illegal substances, and he barked whenever the people from the yacht Santa Maria docked in New York. The contraband was being run via Greyhound bus here to Chicago. We decided to take out the people in this end of the line--the distributors."
Frank had noted that Danny was completely asleep, the shaven part of his skull gleaming bluish in the reduced light of the room. Frank glanced at the clock on the wall. It was five past five. Nurse Romano seemed more relaxed.
"I'll push you back to the elevators. You must be tired as well," she said softly, almost friendly.
"Yes, I'd like that," Frank said. He patted Danny's hand as Nurse Romano took the handles of his wheelchair, pulled him back from Danny's bed, and started to turn him around.
Frank twisted his neck to look at Danny. The pain hurt, but he knew he could handle it. Danny, who'd never walk again, never feel the joy of kicking his shoes through a pile of leaves, Danny would never feel the joy of sliding down a snowy hillside, he never again feel the whisp of new shoes sliding onto his feet. Danny wouldn't be able to balance himself on a boat and never take a semester at sea.
And all that was because a drunken guy in a Camaro had taken the corner way too fast and had plowed into the car Danny's dad drove.
"I'll be back tomorrow, Danny," Frank whispered as he turned his head forward again and Nurse Romano pushed him out of the small cubicle in the ICU unit. Here, the lights were dimmed and the wheelchair slipped easily over the freshly washed tiles.
Although Frank himself could use a nap, Frank knew his team awaited him in his hospital room. He knew they would be anxious; he was the most seriously injured of the team. Alex had no injuries while Monica had taken a bullet in the right calf. Jake himself had suffered a concussion and Cody had various bumps and bruises. Now he'd had to assuage his team's feeling of anxiety--they'd lost Keller to a bullet wound and their emotional wounds were still fresh, even after all these months.
Closure on their anxieties would be very difficult, coming so soon after Keller's death in the warehouse--ironically, in a very similar situation. Like Keller, Frank had been at a warehouse when he'd been shot. Keller had been inside the warehouse and he'd bled to death in Alex's arms.
Frank knew Alex was especially vulernable, despite her tough-girl exterior. Frank knew, without being told, that Alex and Keller had become lovers shortly before his death and he knew Keller's death had hit her especially hard. Alex had shown chutzpah--guts--when she'd gone undercover and had allowed him to tell her to let herself be taken as a temporary hostage. He'd had to talk to her after that event and she'd relayed that she'd like the experience. But Frank knew she'd pull through, mold herself into the exemplary Agent he knew she could beome.
This job did not come without its sacrifices.
Nurse Romano had, by this time, pushed the button for the elevator.
"I'll take you on up to your floor, Mister Donovan," she said. "It's no problem." Frank smiled to himself. Right now, he could use a little help and he was grateful he didn't have to ask for it. He merely nodded and said softly, "thank you," as the elevator doors clinged and opened to reveal their empty spaciousness.
"Hello, Danny," Frank's voice, soft, caused Danny's eyes to flutter open.
"Hi. Who are you?"
"Frank Donovan. How are you feeling?"
Danny grimaced. "Not good. They said I might not be able to walk again." It was a statement but Frank picked up the question. Danny's green eyes, flecked with brown, glanced over at Frank, who was sitting in a wheelchair at the level of Danny's chest.
Frank caught the look, and understood. Danny was upset. Becoming paralyzed in a car accident was no joke, and it would require stamina from even the most stoic of humans.
Frank was qualified to deal with children as a psychologist. Although he was a specialist in criminal behaviour, children had always fascinated Frank. Even in his own childhood, he'd taken great interest in figuring out the motivations of the kids he went to school went.
His first half-term paper for his undergrad psych at Dartmouth had been on children and their reactions to stress. He'd always been able to handle stress well (although the recents events at the bank concerned him), and he had wanted to look in-depth at the reaction of stress in children.
He now looked at Danny with his dark brown eyes. Hope flared there. Danny was a child and he was trusting the adults in his life. Frank was an adult, and although he wasn't in Danny's life, nevertheless Frank was still an authority figure in Danny's life.
And right now, he represented hope to Danny. Here was an adult who wasn't connected to him. Frank chose his words carefully. He decided to ask Danny a series of questions.
"Do you remember the car accident?"
"Yeah. My dad was driving on Shore Drive. The other guy came around the corner."
"Did you see the other car?" Frank was inwardly cringing at the guilty Danny's father must be feeling with the knowledge Danny would not walk again.
"Yeah. It was a 79 Camaro, flame red."
"You're into cars!" Frank made this as an exclamation, hoping he'd found a reasonable entry point at which to insert the knowledge Danny wouldn't walk again.
"Sure am! I've loved cars ever since I could remember. Have an entire collection of Hot Wheels. My dad even found the very first Hot Wheel car being auctioned on Ebay. Paid a lot for it and found out it's worth even more!" Danny's voice got excited and a flush came over his face. The tongs to help hold his neck straight were digging into Danny's forehead and Frank saw the beginnings of a large purple bruise.
"Keep that car in a safe place. In twenty years, that car will be worth tons more than it is now!" Frank could see Danny try to nod.
"Don't try to nod; you'll only dislodge the tongs in your skull," Frank said. Then he asked, "The Camaro was going fast?"
"Yea. I twisted around in the seat to watch him."
"Were you wearing a seat belt?" Frank asked.
"Yeah. Dad said the selt belt was loose, so I adjusted it. The doctors said you can see where the belt bit into my chest and left a bruise."
"And you remember when the Camaro hit your dad's car?"
"Yeah, I saw the car coming straight at us. I tried to yell," Danny looked at Frank, fear in his eyes. "Am I going to walk again?" he asked Frank plainly.
Frank considered the question. He knew Danny wanted to know his fate, and he knew that kids who were old enough to ask the question were old enough to learn the answer. He decided he wouldn't couch his answer with another question, but he would answer Danny succinctly.
"I'm sorry," Frank's voice was soft and his eyes looked into Danny's with a sorrow that Danny could feel.
Danny closed his eyes and sighed. "I knew it. Dad wouldn't tell me. The doctors wouldn't tell me."
"I bet they told you things like "we'll see how things are" or "we don't know the answer yet"."
"Yeah! How did you know?"
"I'm a psychologist."
Danny shot him a sharp look. Frank couldn't help but smile. He'd often used that look when one of his team members annoyed him.
"You were sent down here?" he asked Frank.
Frank laughed, hoping to relieve some of the tension. "No. I work with the Justice Department. I catch the bad guys."
Now Danny eyed him. "The bad guys shoot you up?"
"Yes. Lost three pints of blood. I was brought in the ER just a short time before you were."
"I don't remember the ER much. I do remember one of the nurses saying I'd never walk again. But I knew that when I heard the crunch of my back. I actually felt my legs go numb," Danny said. "Will I get feeling back?" That sudden hope flared in his brown-flecked green eyes and he looked at Frank.
"No. The injury to the spinal cord is far too severe. When the Camaro crunched your dad's car, you were flung forward and your spinal cord was snapped in two at the L-7. That's about the middle of your back," Frank said, anticipating Danny's next question.
For his part, Danny just looked thoughtful. A tear slipped from his left eye. Frank took a Kleenex from the small rolling table next to Danny's bed (not that he'll be using it, Frank thought) and he gently wiped the tear from Danny's eye.
Frank rolled the wheelchair a bit closer to Danny's bed.
"Would you like some water?" Frank asked, picking up the glass with the long, bended straw. "Don't nod, just blink once," Frank admonished in his soft voice. He held up the straw next to Danny's mouth, careful not to show the pain he felt in his left shoulder. Danny took a long sip, and swallowed.
"Thanks," he said. He was quiet for a few moments, and Frank knew he was absorbing the information he'd learned--confirmed, Frank corrected--about his condition. Frank let him ruminate.
"Tell me about the bad guy who shot you," he said as a statement.
"It's pretty bloody," Frank commented.
"I like cops and robbers."
"Oh do you?" Frank teased, a playfullness in his eyes. Danny grinned at Frank's grin. Grins were infectious.
"It's a pretty complicated case," Frank tried to explain.
"It's not like I'm going anywhere soon. Not with these tongs in my head," Danny said to Frank as Frank's eyes looked at Danny.
Just then, the nurse came into Danny's cubicle of a room in the ICU unit.
"Okay, young man. You've come out of surgery yesterday to put those tongs in your head and now it's time for you to get some sleep."
Danny started to protest, but a sharp look from Frank stopped him.
"You'll come back and tell me how you got shot by the bad guys?"
"You bet!" Frank promised, that playful light twinkling in his eyes.
"Not until tomorrow," the nurse admonished. Frank shot her a look but she shot him back the same look. Frank decided not to protest. The nurse administered a medication into Danny's IV line.
"You'll stay until I go to sleep?" Danny asked.
"Yes I will. I'll even start off the story."
Danny smiled. His teeth were white and even, evidently a product of extensive dental work.
"It began six weeks ago, when my unit first received a tip about a gang of bad guys," Frank watched Danny trying to fight off the sleep induced by the medication. He reached over, careful to conceal the pain he felt from his own surgical wound, and adjusted the tongs on Danny's forehead.
"The bad guys were trying to move something into this country. They'd picked a unique way of doing it...by sailboat. Their co-horts disguised themselves as yachties."
Danny's voice, murmurring asked, "Yachties?"
"The people whose lives revolve around their yachts. Most live in their yachts year round and they love to sail the world," Frank responded.
Danny murmurred in coherently, the sedative taking effect. Frank intoned on, in his deeply accented voice, knowing Danny wasn't focusing on the words, but on the sound of his voice--a deep relaxation technique which Frank had learned in his undergraduate days at Dartmouth. Knowing the sedative would take effect soon, Frank kept telling part of his tale.
"The contraband would be stored in the bilges of the yachts. The luxurious boats would be sailed into ports like Miami and New York. Once the yachts cleared customs, the underwater crews went to work. Using scuba gear, they took out the contraband from the bilges, and sometimes from the latine of the yachts. The bad guys slipped the contraband parcels into simple backpacks and merely walked out of the marina with millions of dollars in their proverbial pockets."
Frank kept intoning. He noted how Danny's breathing evened out, and even Nurse Romano was listening intently. Frank's voice, spoken softly, had a relaxing effect and some of the tension went out of Nurse Romano's voice.
"What happened next?" she softly asked.
"After a while, someone at the marina noted that the same boats had a lot of cruises. And that same someone," Frank's voice, now very soft, intoned, "noted that the same people were carrying the same type of backpacks. We were called in."
Frank noted that Danny's breathing had evened out. He himself was feeling extraordinarily tired from his exertion so soon after his surgery but he kept it up.
"We posted a drug sniffing dog at the marina--tethered him to one of the docks. He was trained to bark at illegal substances, and he barked whenever the people from the yacht Santa Maria docked in New York. The contraband was being run via Greyhound bus here to Chicago. We decided to take out the people in this end of the line--the distributors."
Frank had noted that Danny was completely asleep, the shaven part of his skull gleaming bluish in the reduced light of the room. Frank glanced at the clock on the wall. It was five past five. Nurse Romano seemed more relaxed.
"I'll push you back to the elevators. You must be tired as well," she said softly, almost friendly.
"Yes, I'd like that," Frank said. He patted Danny's hand as Nurse Romano took the handles of his wheelchair, pulled him back from Danny's bed, and started to turn him around.
Frank twisted his neck to look at Danny. The pain hurt, but he knew he could handle it. Danny, who'd never walk again, never feel the joy of kicking his shoes through a pile of leaves, Danny would never feel the joy of sliding down a snowy hillside, he never again feel the whisp of new shoes sliding onto his feet. Danny wouldn't be able to balance himself on a boat and never take a semester at sea.
And all that was because a drunken guy in a Camaro had taken the corner way too fast and had plowed into the car Danny's dad drove.
"I'll be back tomorrow, Danny," Frank whispered as he turned his head forward again and Nurse Romano pushed him out of the small cubicle in the ICU unit. Here, the lights were dimmed and the wheelchair slipped easily over the freshly washed tiles.
Although Frank himself could use a nap, Frank knew his team awaited him in his hospital room. He knew they would be anxious; he was the most seriously injured of the team. Alex had no injuries while Monica had taken a bullet in the right calf. Jake himself had suffered a concussion and Cody had various bumps and bruises. Now he'd had to assuage his team's feeling of anxiety--they'd lost Keller to a bullet wound and their emotional wounds were still fresh, even after all these months.
Closure on their anxieties would be very difficult, coming so soon after Keller's death in the warehouse--ironically, in a very similar situation. Like Keller, Frank had been at a warehouse when he'd been shot. Keller had been inside the warehouse and he'd bled to death in Alex's arms.
Frank knew Alex was especially vulernable, despite her tough-girl exterior. Frank knew, without being told, that Alex and Keller had become lovers shortly before his death and he knew Keller's death had hit her especially hard. Alex had shown chutzpah--guts--when she'd gone undercover and had allowed him to tell her to let herself be taken as a temporary hostage. He'd had to talk to her after that event and she'd relayed that she'd like the experience. But Frank knew she'd pull through, mold herself into the exemplary Agent he knew she could beome.
This job did not come without its sacrifices.
Nurse Romano had, by this time, pushed the button for the elevator.
"I'll take you on up to your floor, Mister Donovan," she said. "It's no problem." Frank smiled to himself. Right now, he could use a little help and he was grateful he didn't have to ask for it. He merely nodded and said softly, "thank you," as the elevator doors clinged and opened to reveal their empty spaciousness.