Chapter 15
Rigby opened his eyes. "Where am I?" He wondered as the stark white walls came into focus. Upon further inspection, he realized that he was in bed in a hospital room and he was connected to various types of equipment. He looked around only to find that he was alone in the room. He tried to move his arm, but it seemed paralyzed. He started to panic briefly, but then looked down and realized that it was in a cast. His head was throbbing so he reached up with his good hand and felt the bandages wrapped around it. He had a dull ache in his abdomen, which was also bandaged. "What the hell happened?" He muttered aloud.
He tried to remember. 'Something about the cart'…then, it all started coming back. He and Mordecai had been going down the Hill in the cart, but it had gone terribly wrong. He recalled the cart swerving off the path, but nothing after that. "Where's Mordecai?I hope he's alright!" Rigby's thoughts were interrupted when a nurse entered the room.
"You're awake! This is wonderful!" The nurse exclaimed. "Let me go call the doctor." She was gone just as quickly as she had entered.
Minutes later, Rigby was surrounded by people poking at him, taking his vitals and shining lights in his eyes. "Where's Mordecai?" Rigby inquired several times, but received no answer. When the chaos died down, the doctor began to ask a series of questions that Rigby found odd.
"Do you know your name?" The young doctor asked. He was an oriole in his mid-thirties and his badge identified him as Dr. Brown.
"Of course I know my name! It's Rigby."
"Do you know where you work?"
"At the park. With Mordecai. Do you know where Mordecai is?" Rigby questioned, growing impatient that no one was answering his question.
"There will be time for questions in just a minute." Dr. Brown promised. "Can you tell us your birthdate?"
"November 14, 1991. Why are you asking me these stupid questions? Of course I know all this stuff!" Rigby exclaimed.
"We're just trying to determine if you're suffering from any memory loss or brain damage from the concussion. Please be patient."
"Concussion? What the hell happened to me?" Rigby pressed.
"Do you know what year it is now?"
Rigby sighed. "2014."
"What's four plus six?"
"Ten. Come on, man. How many more questions are there? I feel like crap and you want me to do math?" Rigby asked irritably.
"I think that will do for now. Everything looks good. Your memory and reasoning seem to be fine. You're lucky—that was a pretty serious hit you took to your head. You've been in a coma for two days. We're quite surprised that you came out of it so soon."
"Do you know what happened? I was in the cart and it went off the path, but that's all I remember."
"You apparently were thrown from a golf cart and collided with a tree."
"My friend Mordecai was in the accident too. Do you know where he is?" Rigby asked.
"The blue jay? He went home this morning." Doctor Brown replied.
"Is he okay?"
"I don't know the extent of his injuries. I'm sure he's fine if he's already been discharged."
Rigby was satisfied with that answer. He turned his attention back to finding out what happened. "Why is my stomach so sore if I hit my head?"
"We had do emergency surgery to repair some internal bleeding in your abdomen. Like I said, you're extremely lucky to be doing as well as you are right now. You took a serious hit."
"So how long am I going to have to stay here?" Rigby wondered.
"As long as you continue to do well, you'll probably be sent home in a day or two. It's going to be awhile before you're back to normal activities though." Doctor Brown explained.
"I need to use the phone. I need to call Mordecai and my boss, Benson, to let them know I'm okay." Rigby said.
"You just need to take it easy. We'll call whoever you want us to call. Just write their numbers on here." Doctor Brown passed Rigby his clipboard and waited for Rigby to write down the numbers. "Don't worry about it; we'll take care of it." The doctor then took his clipboard from Rigby and exited the room.
About fifteen minutes passed before a nurse returned to inform Rigby that Benson was on his way, but they were unable to get an answer on Mordecai's phone because it kept going straight to voicemail. "Okay, thanks." Rigby said disappointedly.
"Not a problem." The nurse replied, then left the room, leaving Rigby alone once more.
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About an hour later, Rigby was awoke from a light sleep to find Benson, Skips and Pops in his room. He blinked groggily as his eyes adjusted to the light. "Hi guys," he said, followed by a yawn.
"How are you feeling?" Benson asked.
"Like crap. Everything hurts." Rigby complained.
"We're glad you came out of the coma so soon. The doctor said that everything looks good for a full recovery. We were worried about you." Skips said.
"Good show! You'll be back to your old self in no time! " Pops exclaimed.
"Thanks. Where is everybody?" Rigby scanned the room looking for the remainder of the park employees.
"Oh, Muscle Man and Fives said they will try to visit later tonight. We had some bad storms move through and I sent them out to do a scan on the park to make sure nothing got damaged."
"What about Mordecai? When is he coming?" Rigby asked.
Skips and Benson exchanged an apprehensive glance with one another. "We need to talk to you about Mordecai."
"Have you noticed that Mordecai has been acting a little strange lately?" Skips asked.
"Yeah, why? Rigby said. "I asked him what his problem was and he said he was still down about Margaret leaving."
"That may have started it, but it there was more to it than that. When they brought you guys to the hospital after the crash, then did a blood test on Mordecai." Skips explained.
"And?" Rigby pressed.
"They found marijuana and heroin in his system." Skips revealed.
"What?" Rigby stared at them with wide eyes as he processed what he'd just heard.
"He crashed the cart because he was high. He's apparently been doing this for about a month." Benson interjected.
"I guess that explains a lot of things. Muscle Man said he was on drugs, but I didn't want to believe it. Where is he now?"
"We don't know. I had to fire him and ask him to leave the house." Benson muttered quietly, avoiding Rigby's eyes.
"You kicked him out?" Rigby exclaimed.
"I had no choice, Rigby! It was me or him according to Mr. Maellard."
"Yes, unfortunately father can be bit unreasonable sometimes." Pops said.
"Oh man." Rigby rubbed his forehead. All this was making his head hurt even worse.
"I was going to let him stay with me, but he left before I had the chance to tell him. He's not answering his phone either." Skips said.
"Oh man. Shouldn't we make him go get some help or something?" Rigby asked.
"He refused to go to rehab. We can't make him do anything." Benson explained.
"Maybe he would listen to me." Rigby hoped.
"I'm sure he'll come here to visit you sooner or later." Skips guessed. "He was really broken up over getting you hurt."
"I hope he doesn't do anything stupid." Rigby said.
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