Chapter 14. There Is No Truth You Cannot Maim
Though the news media hadn't made much of the heroic actions of a certain young musician currently in their care, the hospital staff seemed determined to. The fact that he'd been injured saving the lives of a mother and child but seemed to have so little to say about it intrigued them, and the knowledge that the mother and child were nowhere to be found only to made them more determined to remain attentive to the young man's needs in their stead. The only ones more attentive to him were the young man's friends, and the policemen still seeking the shooter. The young man himself, however, seemed frustrated by all the attention. Something screamed he might just run and hide to escape all the attention if only he could manage the movement without it causing him pain. Oddly enough, that only added to the staff's determination to see to his needs.
It was enough to make him crazy.
"Guys, look. Go on home now. It's late, you're tired, and honestly, it's not like I'm gonna do anything interesting anytime soon. No point in you three sittin' around starin' at me while I sleep." Mike implored them for what seemed like the billionth time.
"No way," Davy argued. "Mike, we can't leave you by yourself. What if Louis comes here looking for you. It's not safe."
"Davy, nobody's coming here." Mike protested yet again. Determined to find an ally in this, he turned to the others. "Pete…Micky…come on…"
Peter frowned. "I'm not sure, Mike. I mean, I still agree with Davy. What if he does come here and we're not here. Who's going to protect you?"
Mike groaned. "Now, Pete if that guy comes back here he's likely gonna be carrying somethin' he ought not have and I don't want any of you anywhere near his line of fire." Realizing from the matching looks of horror his friends each wore that he'd said the wrong thing, Mike quickly amended, "' 'sides, it ain't likely he's gonna come around here and if he did security'd catch him 'fore he got anywhere near me, okay? It ain't like nobody's lookin' for him or anything."
"They're not looking hard enough or they'd have caught him already." Micky reminded him. "I'm with Pete. We can sleep in the chairs. They're comfy enough, right guys?"
Mike quirked a brow at them, looking hard at each in turn. "You are not sleepin' in those chairs. You'll end up bent like pretzels, now come on. See reason here, please."
"Then we'll take turns going home," Davy suggested, stretching a bit in an effort to get comfortable. "I'm not tired yet, are you Micky?"
"Nope," Micky replied easily, though his red bleary eyes betrayed the truth. "Not a bit. You Pete?"
"Uh-uh." Peter stifled a yawn. "Not me."
Mike rolled his eyes. "Guys…" he begged. "Just go home. Please. Come back in the morning. I'll still be here, safe and sound, I promise, okay?"
"But Mike…" Davy protested.
"Please," Mike repeated, his tone soft and serious. "You guys sitting here wearin' yourselves out tryin' to watch over me isn't helpin' any of us. I need you all takin' care of yourselves until I'm back on my feet, now. Don't make me keep beggin'. Please."
Micky was the first to give in, placing a hand on Michael's arm. After a moment, he said quietly, "We'll be back in the morning."
Mike nodded, grateful that at least one of them was finally seeing reason.
Davy and Peter looked stunned. "Wait, I thought we…" Peter turned to Davy, who only shrugged in response.
"We'll be back at 7. Do you want us to bring you back anything?" Micky asked, silencing the others.
Mike thought a moment, then smiled softly. "Think you could bring my acoustic with you? And maybe some paper?"
"Told you!" Micky exclaimed with a smile, holding out his hand to Davy. "Pay up!"
"Aw, man." Davy groaned, pulling out his wallet and handing over a ten dollar bill as Peter snickered softly.
"Wait," Mike frowned. "You bet against me wantin' my guitar?"
"No, we all knew you'd want it. We just bet on how long it'd take you to ask for it." Micky grinned.
"And Davy thought…?"Mike asked with a smirk.
"I thought you'd wait until you were at least able to sit up without help to ask for it." Davy admitted.
Mike looked perturbed. "Why would you think that?"
"Your pride," Davy answered as if it should have been obvious. "You don't usually like to ask for help."
"And I'll need help to…what?" Mike prompted. Pointing to the button on the bed that elevated the head of the bed, he smirked again. "Push a button?"
Micky laughed. "Told ya." He said.
"What about you, Pete?" Mike asked. "You didn't get in on this?"
"I lost before Davy did," Pete admitted sheepishly.
Mike looked stunned. "You did?"
Pete nodded, smiling softly.
"Oh yeah," Micky said with a grin. "He thought your first words out of surgery would be 'where's my guitar'."
Michael laughed, then groaned, clutching his side and going white. "Geez, Mick. You're killin' me." He gasped, closing his eyes tightly.
"Sorry, man." Mick sobered quickly, pushing the button for the nurse again while Mike's eyes were closed, knowing he hadn't had any pain medication in awhile and wouldn't likely ask for it himself. "We're gonna go now. See you in the morning."
Mike just nodded, eyes still closed, blowing out a slow, deliberate breath in an effort to get the pain under control again.
"See ya, Mike." Davy said quietly, patting Mike's arm.
"'night Mike," Pete waved reluctantly from the doorway.
The room quickly emptied then, leaving the injured man alone.
The nurse stood in the doorway a moment watching the young man, still taking slow deliberate breaths, before tapping lightly. "Hey there," she greeted him, noting with concern how pale he seemed, as she entered and administered pain meds into his IV, having been caught by his friend on his way out and told of the need. "My name's Paige. I'll be your night nurse this evening."
Mike gave a half hearted wave as pain finally receded back to a dull roar once again. He opened his eyes and looked at her then. "Mike." He responded at last breathlessly.
She smiled warmly. "Nice to meet you, Mike. Can I get you anything else?"
"No thanks." He sighed, shifting uncomfortably. "I'm good."
"Alrighty, then." She replied, only half convinced. "Would you like me to turn off the light for you so you can get some sleep?"
"Sure," he nodded. "thanks."
Paige peeked at his chart, notated the medication given, then turned off the light, pausing a moment to contemplate the young man in the bed before closing the door to allow him some privacy and returning to the nurses' station.
Mike sighed, relaxing as the medication took effect. Slowly, he drifted off to sleep.
A few hours later, a familiar figure stood over the young guitarist.
"Figures. You take a bullet for a couple of no 'count Mexicans but let your own momma die in front of you. Just like you, ain't it boy. Nothin' but trouble since you was conceived. I told her what to do. Even gave her the money to do it, but no, she had to keep you. Even wrote and told Ren about you, sayin' I forced her, but she knew what she was doin' dancin' around in that thin cotton dress like that tempting me. Drinkin' and smilin' and carryin' on. Didn't nobody have to force her to do nothin'. But she was lonely with your dad overseas like that, so she done what she had to do to get by. She could have got rid of you and nobody'd have known 'stead of letting you ruin everything for all of us, but she never was all that bright, your ma. Then she went named you for me so none of us could ever forget our mistake. How was anyone supposed to forgive and forget with it throwed in their face like that? He couldn't look at you without rememberin' what we done. Rememberin' our mistake. That's all you ever was, boy. A mistake. He kept tryin' to come back but you was still right there remindin' him and he just couldn't get past it no matter how many times he tried. Maybe once you're finally dead and gone he'll forgive us, not so it'll do her any good now. It's 'cause of you she done what she did." The deep Texan voice drawled it's confession and sentence all like it was just chatting over a cup of coffee with a friend, then the tall lanky man stepped forward, throwing back the blankets from the apparently sleeping boy and grasping his arm, shaking it to wake him. His eyes trailed from the IV pole back to the boy. "what's this shit." He dropped the boy's arm and punched him in the shoulder hard. "Wake up." He barked.
Mike lay there, forcing his eyes to remain closed, feigning sleep in the vague hope that the man in the room would just go away, ignoring the tale he'd heard a hundred times before, trying to remain detached from it all until the punch in his arm forced him to exhale sharply the breath he hadn't realized he was holding. He opened his eyes then, fixing the man looming over him with a defiant glare. Breathe, he reminded himself. Stay calm and think. He can't do anything to you. Not anymore.
"Good mornin' sunshine." Mike's uncle, Robert Michael Nesmith, Senior, said with a mirthless smile. "Now get up. Let's go."
"What are you doin' here?" Mike asked, keeping his tone conversational. You're not twelve anymore, he reminded himself. You're not a kid. He can't make you do anything, and he knows it. He has to know it. It's not like he can just drag you out of here. "Thought you'd been banned from comin' in here." he reminded him calmly.
"What do you think I'm doin' here? Don't nobody tell me where I can and can't be." Uncle Robert sneered. "I got woke up in the middle of the night to come get your sorry ass after you got yourself shot for another man's wife, that's what I'm doin' here. And I owe you one for that half-wit friend of yours takin' a cheap shot at me. Now get up and let's go." He gestured toward the IV. "And get that shit out of your arm. It ain't like we can take it with us."
Mike shook his head. Even if he could move right now, there was no way he was going anywhere with his uncle. He reached his hand toward the button that would signal the nurse's station he needed help.
"Don't you touch that," His uncle warned, his expression growing dark as his hands balled into fists. "Ain't nobody comin' for you but me. Now don't make me tell you again. Get your good for nothin' ass up out of that bed and let's go, boy."
"Sorry you wasted your time driving all that way for nothing, but I'm not going anywhere with you." Mike replied stonily, his outward appearance giving away none of the panic just the sight of this man always induced in him. You're not a child and he's not all powerful. He reminded himself, though another part of him whispered, you're also in no condition to run or fight, and he knows it. He preys on weakness, remember, and right now he knows you're weak. He quickly told that part of himself to shut up. He closed his eyes forcing his body to relax again, refusing to show fear in his uncle's presence, knowing the man would take advantage of it. Instead, he told him calmly, "If you leave now you can beat the traffic back home."
"Look here you sorry shit, I didn't drive all the way up here to go home without you whatever it takes." Uncle Robert spat, kicking the side of the bed, causing it to jerk hard, sneering as Mike went white but refused to make a sound. "You went and got yourself gut shot, that's fine by me. But gettin' Katie and the others all riled up thinkin' you was dyin' and everyone worryin' you'd get sunk in a paupers lot somewhere, well we can't just let that go. You're kin, like it or not. So I swore I'd bring your body back for proper burial for 'em and I'll be damned if I don't intend to do just that." He reached down and grabbed Mike by the arms, hauling him up out of the bed, smiling when the young man finally cried out in pain. "Time to go home, boy."
Paige made her rounds along the corridor again, checking in on her patients, when she noticed that the door to one of their rooms was open. She knew she'd closed it when she left it last, and nobody was scheduled to have gone in there since, since visiting hours were long since over. She shook her head, quickening her step. Something wasn't right. She could hear talking as she approached, and paused a moment to listen, then quickly flagged down the nearest person, a custodian mopping a little ways up the hall. "Get security for me, please, and send them to room 217." At his nod, she entered the room just as her patient cried out in pain, demanding "What do you think you're doing?"
The tall, lanky man had her patient pinned against him, his long arms contracting around the boy like boa constrictor so tightly he barely seemed to be breathing. He had pulled the boy's IV from his arm, and seemed determined to drag him, struggling, from the room. She noted with concern that bordered on panic that the young man's struggles seemed to be weakening as he went an alarming shade of grey. "We were just leavin', " the man replied in a heavily accented voice, smiling in a way that conveyed nothing but malice though his tone seemed completely conversational.
"Sir, please, just put him down a moment and let's talk about this," Paige requested as calmly as she could manage, hoping against hope that someone from security would hurry up and get there. "He's in no condition to go anywhere right now. Whatever reason you have for wanting to take him out of here, you need to understand he shouldn't be moved right now. He shouldn't even be out of that bed. Please…"
"I'll do what needs to be done with him," the man interrupted, though nothing in either his words or his tone did anything to reassure Paige at all. "You just clear on out of the way, Missy, and I'll take care of him. Don't you worry."
"As much as I'd like to comply, sir, I'm afraid I really can't. You see, I'm responsible for him. Mike's my patient. I can't just let you walk out of here with him. Look at him. Can't you see that what you're doing right now is hurting him? Please…," she heard movement behind her and hoped fervently that it was security arriving at last. "Mike needs…"
"Robert." The man growled, though his voice seemed to gentle somewhat as he continued. "His name is Robert, not Michael. Robert Michael Nesmith. First name Robert. I know that, see, because he was named for me. He's my albatross, you see. You know that story?"
"Yes, sir, I do," Paige answered, "I also remember that in it the albatross was good luck until some misguided fool killed it. Now please…."
"Put him down, sir," one of the voices behind her demanded. Paige breathed a sigh of relief, recognizing the voice of Adam, one of their security guards. "Just ease him down and back up."
"23 years, I been saddled with him," Robert continued talking to Paige as if the security guard hadn't even spoken, making no move to release the young man who had completely stopped struggling, going limp in his arms. "Since she found out she was pregnant. Ruined everything. My reputation. My family. He…one mistake. See, that's what he is. My one mistake. I aim to fix that now."
"Not tonight," Adam said, drawing his weapon and aiming it. Why did they always get the nut jobs on his shift? "Tonight, you put him down as gently as you can and you put your hands behind your head or I put a bullet between your eyes. Just for fun. What do you say?"
"Adam, please, " Paige hissed, certain that antagonizing the crazy man probably wasn't the best idea.
"Please," Adam amended, hoping that would appease the nervous nurse. "Of course, if you'd rather take door number two, Paige here might be able to keep you alive long enough to put you on life support. Maybe we can even let you be an organ donor for your albatross later. Sound good?" God, he hated graveyard shift. And hadn't they just thrown this guy out a couple nights ago?
Paige had already stopped paying attention beyond stepping out from between them. Letting Adam handle the still-conscious Texan, she turned her attention to the one in his arms. She began timing the rise and fall of the younger man's chest, relieved to see that he was, indeed breathing, though not as deeply, perhaps, as she would like.
"Last warning, sir," Adam pressed as another guard came into the room behind him.
Seeing that he had no other option, the older man finally relented and lowered the young man down to the floor then put his hands behind his head as he'd been directed, shooting daggers with his eyes at the guards as he did so. The moment he was out of the older man's arms, Paige hurried to her patient's side, reaching for the button for the nurse's station, fairly certain she'd need more help.
"Helps already outside waiting for the all clear," the second guard, whose voice she recognized as Marcus, informed her.
"Good. Now step back and turn to face the wall," Adam kept his attention on the older Texan, leaving the younger in Paige's capable hands as he stepped forward with his cuffs. He looked down at Paige and Mike only after he was certain the elder man was secured. "How's he doing?"
"He'll live," Paige sighed, shaking her head, as she continued with her assessment. "He popped a few stitches. We'll need to watch him closely for the next few hours to be sure that he didn't undo anything internally. But he'll live."
"Good enough," Adam nodded, guiding the now-despondent elder Nesmith toward the exit. The waiting attending physician and another nurse entered in their wake.
Once the patient was once again where he should be, sutures redone, IV reinserted, apparently resting comfortably, everyone filed out to continue their other duties, though all kept a closer eye on the door of the young musician until his friends arrived again promptly at 7 am.
"Morning, Mike," Micky greeted his friend brightly as they entered the room, setting his friend's guitar next to the bed.
"Did you miss us?" Davy asked, plopping into the nearest chair.
Mike gave a little half smile, nodding. It was safe to say his friends' absence had been felt during the night, though he wasn't about to go into why.
"Yup." He answered at last, realizing they were still waiting for an actual reply. "I really did."
Peter smiled, oddly pleased by that fact, as he handed over pencil and paper. "Did you sleep well?" he asked.
"You know how it is, Shotgun," Mike shrugged carefully, still sore and tired from the night's adventure. "Nobody sleeps well in hospitals."