"GUESSWORK"
- Chapter Forty-Four -
"Wake Up, Baby Boy!"
As Jonesy, the SONAR man, said in "Hunt for Red October": "For a minute there, I thought I heard … singing …"
Singing??Mmmm … something about the Russian national anthem … and: "running home to Momma …"
Never mind. Forget it. I just thought for a minute I heard singing …
Wow! I did! But not from underwater …
It's taking me longer this time to come out of the anesthesia. Wilson and that damn kid are gonna get their asses chewed!
What I heard while I was floating up through the depths, reminded me immediately of Jonesy on the Dallas … Bart Mancuso's big Los Angeles class submarine …
"Come on, 'Big D' … fly!"
My God! I'm dreaming about Cold War Movies and Russian submarines! The longer I'm here, the more bizarre my dreams are becoming …and I keep getting stabbed in the rear end … and elsewhere … with hypodermic needles!
I hold myself back from laughing. Laughter, or even the hint of it, would tell them I was regaining consciousness, and I don't want anyone to know yet. There are some things I have to check out for myself first.
Have to watch the breathing too! They can tell from that if I'm faking … if they're watching and listening to the monitors closely … and the odds are good that they are.
So I continue to fake it while Shaniqua Tolliver sits beside my bed, holding my damn hand and humming "Amazing Grace".
I don't have much time to figure things out; they'll be expecting me to come out of it soon. So I start a physical inventory of this messed-up old bod that begins at the top of my head and moves downward, inch-by-inch.
Key word: "Inventory".
Ahh … crap! That thought not only lit up a whole new light bulb; it threatened to blow out the fuse and the main circuit along with it!
Just that quick I see myself back about two weeks in time. Sitting in that stinking dayroom with a herd of human detritus … Step Four: "Took a searching and fearless moral 'inventory' of ourselves …"
Goddamn! Hard to believe that six freakin' weeks hanging out with twenty smelly drunks and druggies and reciting the Twelve Steps, could make an indelible imprint on a man's brain that fast!
Come off it, House! You're wasting time, and they'll be onto you in a minute … Neeka, fer Chrissake, pick another song! Jonesy, cover my six! I'm crashin' …
I feel the hint of a headache … whether just coming on or just leaving, isn't quite clear. Anesthesia will do that to some people. It did it to me in spades after the second surgery, back when I had the infarction. With a little luck, this one won't persist. I've got enough damn pain to look forward to.
Poor me!
My eyes burn and my mouth is dry. Nothing unusual there. I don't think I was intubated for this procedure. My throat isn't scratchy. Probably a mask, like they did a couple days ago. God, my mind is fucked up!
My shoulders ache, and lying flat on the mattress isn't helping. There's a pulse ox on my index finger … and I can feel the IV needle taped to the back of my right hand. Again! The damned thing is pulling the tiny hairs there. That figures. They're still babying my left hand, just because of the laceration … which is nearly healed now, and not at all painful. But Neeka still holds onto it like it'll fall off if she lets go.
My brain tells me I'm hungry, but my belly says: "Oh no you're not!" So I guess I'd better not be asking for food. Not yet, anyway.
I sigh; let my breath hitch in my throat a little … let them think maybe I'm already in pain. I'm not … but I don't mind if they think so.
Liar! Scuttle the boat, House! Swerve the bus before you hit the dog!
I move my head half an inch to the left, and wince just a tiny bit … a quirk at the corner of my mouth, and let my eyes squinch shut a little tighter … then relax. And do it again. Are they watching? They must be! I don't hear any movement. Not sure who-all might be here in the room with me.
Shaniqua … I already know that! Bart? Could be. He sneaks around this place like a snowball in a blizzard.
Surely Wilson ...
There is no sensation in my leg. Probably still deadened with morphine. Don't know if there is a bandage or a brace … the leg isn't elevated …or anything else that will tell me how the surgery has gone. I need to look, but half scared to. I'd never admit that to a living soul!
I feel no pain. None. Nothing from the damn pain-in-the-ass foot either. Not even the feeling of pressure that the ulcer has been causing.
Damn! I expected to be able to determine more than this!
Neeka is still humming …
She has a nice voice. Probably sings in the choir at whatever whoop-ass church she goes to. Most black women her age belong to one of those or other … but I wish she'd switch songs. This one is getting tiresome.
Try "Asleep In the Deep", sweetheart. Little joke there …
I'm trying again to move the leg … hitch it a little … drag it across the mattress a few inches. Crap! It won't move, same as last time. Some of my alarm bells are beginning to go off, dammit!
Now I hear the shuffle of feet across the floor. They saw me trying to do that one! Movement, coming closer to my side, and then stop. A murmur of voices near my bed.
One of them is Shaniqua. Whispering: "Shouldn't he be waking soon? Poor baby boy …" Her fingers are gentle in my hair. Feels good, actually … looking out for the cripple. Aw, Neeka … how sweet of you …
But you could knock off the "Baby Boy" shit?
I hear a tiny chuckle of approaching laughter. Warm, soft, affectionate.
Wilson! Of course he's here. I knew it. Not quite as worried about me as Shaniqua seems to be. Another wry chuckle confirms the presence of Bart …
Uh oh … really gotta scuttle the boat! Look out Jonesy! They're gonna deep-six us!
"You have to take into consideration who you're dealing with here!" Wilson is saying in a very sly manner. I can hear the hint of an old friend's knowing sarcasm in his tone. "He's been awake for at least ten minutes!"
Ah fuck! Busted like a cheap balloon! Too late Jonesy! The torpedo just hit the hull … And I'm trying to make like a hole in the water …I open my eyes a slit, and Wilson is glaring at me. Neeka has gone silent. I don't see Bart, and since he can't see me anyhow, he would have to be hands-on to get any input from the eyeball circus. Neeka's hands were the only ones on me, but she has backed off … and finally shut up with the Jesus songs.
Wilson is bending over me. "Who did you think you were fooling, Ace?"
I open my eyes all the way and try a "helpless" look. He isn't having any. He doesn't like it when I try to fool him, although the look in his eyes differs drastically from the one that shows on his face. So I try to look contrite … but I guess that doesn't work either. He's telling me I look as though I'm sucking on a ten-penny nail.
Ew!
And then I see him nod at someone out of my line of vision. He says: "Go back to sleep awhile!" I blink my eyes a few times, and I begin to fade away again. I don't want to, but I'm thinking someone has upped the drip on one of my IVs.
Things are going gray …
"Gray Lady Down" …
I'm dreaming again … I think …and in my dreams, the shit hits the fan …
A huge, dark, cylindrical image is coming at me under the sea. Bus? No. Another submarine! I cringe. Playing cat and mouse with me, and I watch this leviathan thrust and feint like a giant eel in mortal combat …
Go, Dallas!
I'm the captain … at the conn … and the attack from the other boat has just caught us amidships … a torpedo going off so close to our vulnerable underbelly that the lights blink off and on before our auxiliary systems can compensate for the near hit.
I scream at them to compensate … "Right rudder! Come about! Forty degrees on the bow plane!" A chain reaction begins to build beneath the decks under our feet, and I fear we are getting the worst of it.
The Dallas lurches like a Brahma bull as the attack causes us to flounder. Another torpedo runs a near miss before we can run stable enough to retaliate. Tracers burn along the starboard side, sizzling fore to aft. Inboard lights blink again, then go out completely as my crew scrambles for purchase to keep from hitting the bulkheads.
Some of them are too late, as smoking console boards begin to short out and burn, their metallic stench adding to the already contaminated air down here …
"Auxiliary lights!" I scream, half choking, prying myself off the nearest railing and jabbing at shutdowns before I have a major fire on my hands. From the corner of my eye I observe other members of the crew valiantly scrambling about, assisting in the effort. They catch my eye for brief moments, and I nod acknowledgment in their direction.
We'd somehow managed to get to most of the more serious breaches in the mains.
Once again, interior lighting flashes, blinks once, then flickers and steadies as laboring emergency-generating plants growl into operation. I leap back to the conn, both hands burned and stinging, and open the link to the engine room.
"What the hell's going on down there? I need emergency power, and I need it now!"
The strangled voice coming through the grid is not my chief engineer, but that of his little Australian boson's mate: "Captain? This is Chase, sir. Commander Foreman 's been hurt. He's on his way to sick bay …"
Chase? Foreman? Sick Bay?
"We can't give you emergency power, sir. We can't give you emergency anything! It's crazy down here! Two men dead. Two others badly burned. We're givin' it all we got, Captain … but I gotta feelin' she's gonna blow … sir … we're gonna hit the dog!"
Dog??
The link goes dead. Banging on the grid doesn't do a fucking thing. I turn to look around in the eerily bloody red light, thrown dimly off the bulkheads by the failing auxiliary batteries. I know there is precious little time. My boat is consuming herself from the inside out. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I give myself the luxury of a few moments' mourning … wondering how badly Commander Foreman was injured … who had given their lives in the line of duty … Bobby. Earl.
But there is no time for that now, and I bring myself back to full awareness. Through the rising stench of burning circuitry, Commander Wilson stumbles toward me, pointing at the forward status board and their blinking indicators, trying to form words through a burning throatful of smoke. I whirl to look over in the direction where he's gesturing …
The numbers on the indicators are counting down as an object comes at us full-bore from the direction of our starboard bow.
"Fire One!" I scream.
"Inoperable!" Wilson screams back.
"Fire Two!"
"Inoperable, sir …" Lieutenant Bernoski yelps.
"Engineering! Chase! Take us out of here! Dive! Dive!" The grid crackles to life as I pummel at it.
"Diving, sir. Aye, sir."
I can feel Dallas lurch suddenly as the ballasts fill and the downward planes clank and grind. She is barely lugging away from certain destruction, and we all feel her death throes as she sinks toward the murky depths. Too late … too late …
Wilson and I stand hunched beside the conn, waiting for her massive hull to crush inward
from the water pressure. He looks at me with a firm expression of acceptance and long comradeship, and then turns to walk gallantly back to man his own station.
The time we have left on this planet is winding down …
"Captain! Wait!"
It's Wilson, and his voice is tense with something I can't quite read. Hope?
"The other boat, sir! I don't understand! They're hesitating. Circling! We have a chance for a shot!"
I scream into the grid: "Engineering! Come about! Bring 'er level! Ready torpedoes Three and Four!"
"Aye, sir!" His voice is breaking up, and I hope we can maintain the connection.
I return my attention to Wilson as we feel the intense gravity of our boat as it begins to level off. "What the hell are they up to?"
"Unknown, sir. They think they have us. Maybe they think we're dead in the water and they're coming around to be sure. They are within firing range, sir!"
"Fire Three! Fire Four!"
"Three away, sir! Four away!" We feel the jolts of release; hear the hiss of water displacement.
"Goin' home to Momma!" Jonesy says. "Here, boy!"
Where the hell did Jonesy come from all of a sudden?
We hold our collective breaths.
Contact!
WHUMP!! WHUMP!!
The twin concussions throw most of us on our asses. Our ears pop. The other sub was too close for comfort. Again we hold our breaths, hoping that our damaged vessel hasn't been taken apart also in the wicked aftermath of disaster beneath the ocean's surface.
Another concussion is the result of the mystery submarine coming apart as her hull crushes inward. Not us! Not us!
The boat lurches, and I hear Wilson groan. I land hard against the base of the periscope. I can feel the agony of the big bone breaking in my right thigh, and the pain radiating down my leg all the way to my foot. It is staggering, and for a moment it takes my breath away. Then it goes dark around me and my fading thoughts are for the safety of my crew.
"Wil-son-n-n …we're aliiive …!"
The dream is over, and my pain returns like a torpedo firing amidships.
Everything comes apart in a firestream of excruciating pain, and I feel, rather than hear, myself, moaning out loud … clawing at the air for something to hold onto … something solid to wrap myself around … exert a force to be reckoned with by the strength of my arms so the pain will not rip my body apart …
and I'm screaming … and I'm screaming …
Someone has me in a death grip … hands easily as strong as my own grasp my wrists to keep me from hurting myself … forcing me to bend my elbows and stop arching my back in the effort to find a way to climb out of the zone of torture.
It's Wilson. Easing me back from the place I desperately don't want to be, and I return to sanity at last, realizing he is sitting against me with his arms around my aching shoulders, his face pressed against my neck. He is holding my body down until the pain peaks and the increased meds kick in and I can become coherent again.
I open my eyes and the world reassembles around me. He is looking down into my face now, and his image is blurry because my eyes are still swimming with tears. He backs off some, and my shoulders are painful from the force of his weight on top of me.
"How did you know?" I finally asked.
"Kip said we should stay with you … watch you … that when the pain came back, it would be bad. He was right. How is it now?"
His eyes are full and splashing over with his own pain, and beside him I see the others as they gather around me.
Kip Bernoski is standing at my right, directly in my line of vision, and I can see the tears running down his face like a mountain stream in springtime. "I am … so … sorry, Gregg," he says. "This is not what I had in mind when I decided to …"
"Stop it!" I'm surprised how strong my voice is. I am still reeling with the residual effects of the intense pain, but it has slacked off now, and it is not so excruciating that I can't hush him from all the idiotic hand wringing and apology making on my behalf. I had gone into this with my eyes wide open, and said so. "Any sense of sorrow that shows up at this little camp meeting should be for Earl Keirkgaard … not for me!
"I just got back what I was so damn anxious to give away a couple of days ago!"
They didn't say much after that.
Later, the rest of them just kind of faded away. I slept some, and was vaguely aware of Wilson … damn his contrary hide … hovering above me like an agitated dragonfly.
Bart Kirkpatrick, standing by the head of my bed with his strong, warm, soft fingers firmly working my aching shoulders, lulled me gently to sleep as my own father never had. And wherever he touched me, the muscles relaxed immediately.
Shaniqua finally went home to her son … and I thanked her for the concert … and for the love … and as sarcastically as I could possibly make it, I told her I was personally gonna kick her kid's rear, but I didn't really mind being called "baby boy"!
After that it was just Wilson and me. Batman and Robin. Lone Ranger and Tonto. Kirk and Spock. How could I pick on him after all he'd been to me … for me … this past week? I couldn't. And I hated myself for my inability to even try to piss him off.
He sat so close to me that I wanted to slap him silly … but I couldn't do that either. Figuratively or literally. So I finally decided to put up with it. I figured he'd get sick of the mother-hen bit sooner or later and finally go away of his own accord.
He didn't.
I told myself I needed to learn to put up with that too!
With my status going full-circle, and now all the way back to the place I'd been on the day I got here, I would never be rid of him as long as I lived.
Actually, that was not a bad thing.
Later, he pumped me full of sleepy juice, and I had a pretty decent night.
So much for signing on the dotted line …
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