Craig 21 years old

They said I was lucky as I laid in that hospital bed with IV's in my arm and the oxygen tubing in my nose and the foley catheter in my bladder but despite that I always felt like I had to pee. The nurses would explain it over and over that it went into that bag and I was fine. Pain meds around the clock. Beaten within an inch of my life, a knife to the kidney and I lost it. I was lucky because I had two.

This was lucky? Not being dead was lucky? Not being crippled. I'd be fine, more or less. Not like when Jimmy got shot that time in school, paralyzed from the waist down. No lasting injuries, I heard the doctors telling Joey. And he cried and said thank God and I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep.

I sometimes have a hard time dealing with Joey's brand of sympathy. I don't know. His face gets all crumpled in concern and I just feel engulfed in it. Swept along by it. And there's nothing I can do.

I suppose I should feel grateful for the stream of visitors. Angie and Joey, of course. My entire band, wandering in stoned, mumbling about deities and obscenities, "Jesus Christ, dude, what the fuck?" they'd say, and I could smell the pot wafting around them like perfume. But I was on much better drugs. I'd been high for days. It was almost worth almost being killed. That was lucky.

There was no end to this hospitalization in sight. Losing a kidney was quite a big deal. My temperature was up and down, fighting off infection after infection. My psych meds were all out of whack. Joey visited every day, coaxing me to talk, which I haven't been doing much of since the thing. The attack. Vicious and unprovoked, the papers said. But it didn't surprise me. Violence had a way of finding me.

I was getting pretty bored with this room. There was this border, like x's made out of ribbons that swirled all around the top edge of the room and I'd follow it with my eyes until I got dizzy. And there were prints of cheesy paintings, twirling ballerinas on one wall and some thick medieval forest on another wall, and with the lights on the glare off the glass frame obscured half of it anyway.

Joey wanted me to talk to the police but I didn't want to. I'd talked to the police about that homeless kid, Skinny. What good had that done? They didn't find him. He had my 4000 dollar guitar. What would I say to the police anyway? I didn't remember any of it.

"Craig, please. Eat," Joey, sitting by my bed. There was a tray of food but I hadn't touched it. I opened my eyes at his voice but looked at him like I was dazed, out of it, glazed with pain. And I was all those things. But inside I was clear, and I didn't want to eat. I had the IV stuck in my arm. Let that keep me alive. I was tired of doing it.

"Craig. Hey, buddy. C'mon. Say something," Joey broke my heart. He held my hand, too, kind of clumsily patting the top of it. He was scared for me. So of course I wanted to please him.

"Wh-what, J-Joey?" I said, forcing the words out past the stutter. Since the attack I haven't been able to hardly speak without stuttering. The doctors said it might go away in time but it might not. I knew from what I heard them say that they didn't really understand stuttering all that well. Maybe it was from head trauma to the language center of the brain. Maybe it was from emotional trauma of being beaten and nearly killed. From being lucky. Maybe both. They didn't know.

"I just, I wanted to hear you say something. I'm worried," Joey, stating the obvious. I nodded. The less talking the better.

"So will you eat?" he said, and I caught the pleading look in his eyes. I remember he had looked at my mother just that way before she died. Maybe I was dying, too. Maybe I wasn't as lucky as everyone thought. But that look got me. I reached out for the fork with the hand that didn't have the IV, but it was the left so I was clumsy. I told myself that's why I was clumsy, and the fork felt like it weighed 20 pounds. I got a bit of the hospital mashed potatoes on the fork, and they were kind of like school mashed potatoes, that perfect half of a softball. I put the small bite in my mouth and chewed it dutifully while Joey watched me and smiled the smallest smile I'd ever seen.