Chapter 22
"Bitter Undercurrents"
I DIDN'T GET EVERYTHING DONE THAT I WANTED TO DO THAT DAY. IT TURNED OUT TO BE IMPOSSIBLE. I DROVE OVER TO THE STORAGE UNIT TO LOAD UP SOME CLOTHING TO HOLD ME OVER UNTIL I GOT MYSELF ESTABLISHED IN THE AREA AND FOUND A WAY FOR 'KYLE CALLOWAY' TO HIDE IN PLAIN SIGHT WHILE HE PULLED HIMSELF TOGETHER.
I FOUND AN EMPLOYEE ON DUTY AT THE STORAGE UNIT WHO WAS WILLING TO HELP SOMEONE ON CRUTCHES TO LOAD A COUPLE OF OLD SUITCASES INTO HIS TRUNK. I WAS ALSO ABLE TO LOCATE A SMALL AM-FM RADIO IN THERE THAT I'D KEPT IN MY CLOSET IN PRINCETON FOR YEARS. I MISSED THE BIG ZENITH AND HOPED THE SMALLER ONE WOULD BRING IN HALF THE STATIONS I'D ENJOYED ON BARBADOS.
BY THE TIME I FINISHED THERE AND LEFT THE GUY A TWENTY DOLLAR TIP, MY LEG WAS RATCHETING UP WITH BURNING PAIN THAT QUICKLY OVERTOOK ME. I KNEW IT WOULD BE USELESS TO STUMBLE AROUND CHECKING APARTMENTS, SO I RETURNED TO THE CAR AND DROVE BACK TO THE DRAKE.
I HAD TO PARK OUT BACK IN THEIR GUEST LOT AND WALK INSIDE THROUGH A CORRIDOR THAT RAN PARALLEL TO THE RESTAURANT. BY THE TIME I MADE IT TO THE FRONT DESK I WAS READY TO DROP. I LEANED ON THE COUNTER AND WAITED FOR THE MAN WORKING THERE TO FINISH HIS CONVERSATION WITH ANOTHER GUEST. PRESENTLY HE TURNED AWAY AND APPROACHED ME WHERE I STOOD. "ARE YOU ALL RIGHT, SIR?" I MUST HAVE LOOKED LIKE HELL.
MY BARK OF LAUGHTER WAS SARCASTIC, BUT I DROPPED MY HEAD AND LOWERED MY VOICE IN THE ATTEMPT TO NOT LOOK PATHETIC. "I'M JUST … REALLY TIRED. I'M REGISTERED IN ROOM 317. I NEED SOMEONE TO GET TWO SUITCASES OUT OF MY CAR AND BRING THEM UP TO MY ROOM. IS THAT OKAY? THERE'S NO HURRY, BUT I NEED TO GET BACK UP THERE BEFORE I FALL DOWN. SORRY."
THE GUY'S HEAD CAME UP QUICKLY AND HIS EXPRESSION CHANGED. HE PICKED UP THE HOUSE PHONE, DIALED A NUMBER AND SPOKE BRIEFLY. HE PLACED A HAND ON MY ARM AND SAID IN A LOW VOICE: "CAN YOU KEEP IT TOGETHER FOR A FEW SECONDS? SOMEONE IS COMING TO HELP."
"YEAH. THANK YOU." I LEANED HARD ON THE COUNTER AS THE FIRE BURNED ABOVE MY KNEE.
I WAS AWARE OF TWO OTHER MEN … STRANGERS … WALKING UP ON EITHER SIDE OF ME. I SUSPECTED THAT THEY WERE HOTEL GUESTS WHO HAD SEEN THE SITUATION AND STEPPED IN TO ASSIST. ONE OF THEM GRASPED BENEATH MY LEFT ARM AND THE OTHER, MY RIGHT. THEY WERE JUST IN TIME, OR I WOULD HAVE DROPPED.
From across the lobby a young man came running with a wheelchair. I was vaguely aware of being helped into it. The kid was wearing a Princeton hoodie, and I watched him circle around in front of me to put the brakes on the chair. He knelt and adjusted the right leg rest, and then lifted my leg carefully to position it on top.
The kid and another guy accompanied me to my room, but I was a little too out-of-it to pay much attention. I remember saying that I needed my suitcases out of my car and handing over the keys. For all I knew, he might be a descendent of Al Capone, but I didn't give a shit at that particular moment. I was too busy rubbing at the scar. The man from the lobby stayed with me and the younger one hurried out the door.
"Sorry for making a scene down there," I said. "This … (pointing to my leg) … is a major inconvenience sometimes. I hope I didn't throw a monkey wrench into your plans …"
The guy grinned at me, obviously relieved that I wasn't about to pass out on him. "Yeah, you threw the monkey wrench, but your timing was incredible. I was trying to back out of a really boring blind date. I told the woman I was with that I thought I should stay with you. It pissed her off and she left, so thank God for monkey wrenches, huh?"
I smiled and reached out my hand. "Monkey wrenches can come in handy sometimes. I'm Kyle Calloway, by the way. Thanks for your help. I was losing it down there."
We shook hands. "I'm Steve Bohner, Kyle. Nice to meet you. Can I get you a drink of water? You look like you could use it."
"Yeah, sounds good. Should be some in the carafe on the table over there. Wish I had something stronger. We could indulge."
Steve walked over, picked up a glass and poured. Walked back and handed me the glass. "Me too," he said.
I drank; drained the glass.
"More?"
"No thanks."
The key turned in the lock and the kid with my suitcases and radio struggled through the door. "Here's your luggage, Mr. Calloway. Okay to leave them here?" He set them both down and returned the car keys and radio to the small table inside the door.
"How'd you know my name?"
"Oh … sorry … I'm Patrick McIvers. That's my dad working the front desk. He told me about you."
"Small world," I mumbled. "They're okay where they are. Thank you. Patrick, this is Steve Bohner."
Patrick grinned. "I know … he's a guest." The kid wiggled his eyebrows.
Steve and I frowned.
When Steve left to go back to his own room, Patrick stayed behind to babysit. No other word for it. I'm not sure of his motivations, but he told me he was not leaving until he was sure I was okay. Ten or twenty "I'm fines" did nothing to deter him.
So I started a conversation, hoping that if I got him talking about himself, it might take the focus off me. That worked. Turns out he had graduated from high school in the spring and was working with his folks at the hotel until he started college at Princeton in the fall … which wasn't that far away.
I told him I'd been out of the country for an extended time and had just returned, repeating the same mantra I'd handed out to his grandmother the morning before. We talked about this and that while he opened my suitcases and placed them on a low chest of drawers where my stuff would be convenient for me. He found a prescription bottle full of Vicodin that I'd forgotten about, and I asked him to put them in the bathroom, which he did.
He plugged in the radio beside the bed and found a station playing popular hits. I let it go … it was his kind of music. He told me he really liked my old car. Thought it was in beautiful shape for its age. I kept my own counsel on that one, laughing in my head as I handed him another line of bullshit. I said I believed in taking good care of a car so the car would take good care of me …
One of the biggest lies I'd ever told. He bought it, hook line and sinker. He almost turned summersaults over the ten spot I handed him when everything was finished, and I didn't look like I would faint or fall out of the wheelchair. He left ten minutes later after almost getting down on his knees thanking me.
*Everybody lies!"
The rest of the afternoon I spent catering to the pain in my leg. I took a couple of Vicodin and shed the jeans. If the pain intensified, it would be easier to massage it naked than if I had to work at it through a layer of thick denim.
I ordered room service for the evening meal because I wasn't about to get dressed to go down to the dining room. I propped myself against the head of the bed with a blanket over my legs and my laptop on a pillow in my lap. The wheelchair stood beside the bed close by where the waiter would see the poor cripple doing some kind of very important work on his computer … (snicker).
The food was wonderful. Four-ounces of medium-rare sirloin, smothered in mushrooms and onions; almond green beans in spider sauce, and scalloped potatoes, filled the bill very well. A tall Coors Silver Bullet in a glass and another one on ice completed the feast. Oh yeah!
As the evening progressed, the waiter removed my food cart and I added another ten to his pocketbook. Amazing how sweet people can be at the sight of money.
I switched the stations on the radio and was lying back on the pillow tapping my fingers to the sounds of a really good blues band. The TV stood silent. I had broken the TV habit on Barbados and wasn't even surprised that I didn't miss it. I thought about Hooley and Amos and Packy and wished one or all of them could be here to shoot the shit with. I also thought about resuming the leg exercises … I couldn't think about Hooley without adding those into the equation. His nagging was worse than Wilson's in some regards. With a smile I recalled the impression the man had made on me from the start, and the way his influence still hacked into my brain from over two thousand miles away.
After that, I returned my thoughts briefly to my old team at Princeton-Plainsboro: the people I'd used and abused and exploited for how many years? Ten? … at that hospital. They were scattered now. I remembered Foreman who tried so hard to keep from becoming me. He never quite succeeded, but at least he managed to inherit the good and let go of the bad.
Chase, the pretty boy … the tattletale and ass kisser … was a gifted surgeon, even if he couldn't keep his zipper zipped or his big mouth shut. Cameron, the original 'goody two-shoes', whom I had hired because she was pretty, had somehow disappeared into the big beyond. What became of her I had no idea, and it didn't matter anymore. I hoped she was happy, wherever she was.
I also hoped Remy Hadley … my friend "Thirteen" … had found a life for herself with the woman I'd seen her with the last time we spoke. She deserved some kind of break before the roof fell in. I wondered if she would try to contact me when it was time to turn her lights out for good … as I had promised.
Chris Taub I respected. He was a good doctor too, and I wished him well. Kutner was just gone, and that was that. The last two females whose names I can't remember to save my soul, skittered in and out of my life before I really took notice of them. Caricatures in a long-forgotten one-act play.
Lisa Cuddy's name, floating around in my head, gave me the sensation of chewing on moth balls. Her memory left a really bad taste in my mouth. She was fun sometimes, totally vindictive at other times, and blatantly seductive all the time. I compared her with the pain in my leg: seductive, demanding, selfish and unrelenting. Yeah, I was over Cuddy. Way over. Together we were like poison to each other. I have better things to do than moon over 'what might have been' with someone I had no business being with in the first place.
Then there's Wilson. That bastard takes over my thoughts even when I least want him there. When I was feeling sorry for my pathetic situation, his voice was always in my ear: "Get over yourself, House!" Sometimes when I woke in the morning I could still hear him purring: "Could you eat some macadamia pancakes?" And the many times he caught me dog-swallowing another dose of Vicodin: "Therapy, House. Therapy. Not more pills."
What can I say about Wilson? Except … I miss his bitching, his demands, his idiocy and his bleeding heart. I miss his neatnik ways and his constant protective presence at my side. He was the Felix to my Oscar; the one person I couldn't discourage with harsh words, and the most important influence in my crummy life. Now he's gone. I hate the thought that I might never see him again.
*Christ! Poor me …*
Eventually, my vagabond imaginings came full circle and I thought about my parents … those two strange people who, in tandem, screwed up my early life. My shitty attitude did nothing to help the situation, but they continually gave mixed signals. John laid down the rules and Blythe endorsed them, especially if he was around.
When he was off somewhere playing with his big, powerful toys, she was the most human. She cooked my favorite dishes, spent time playing with me, and gave me my first instruction on the piano. At those times I loved her unconditionally. But when John came in the front door, she reverted to the automaton she always was in his presence. I quickly adopted the belief that I had three parents: the fun-mom one and the U. S. Marine ones.
At twelve years of age, I found out the truth. My father was not my father; not the biological one anyway. So I shut him out of my head and out of my life. The ice baths stopped, and so did the military discipline. I simply ignored him, and my indifference preyed on him. He began to let me alone.
Now, as I think back, I wish I'd had the maturity to look for common ground, but my resentment got in the way. It lasted all the way until the day he died. Now I can't fix it.
Like my leg … it's too late.
Mom and Thomas Bell knocked me for a loop when they announced they were married. I came to believe for a while that Bell was my real dad … but Wilson, damn him, proved otherwise. Yeah, my mom, in her youth, had been a slut. Bully for her! The information had delighted me … and the question of who the hell my real father is remains unanswered. I wonder if I'm even interested anymore.
I thought to myself … maybe if I charm the hell out of her, she will tell me.
I should call … but it's almost midnight, for chrise'sake ...
Fuck it! I'll call anyhow.
I dialed their home number in Lexington just before 12:30 a.m. Chances were good that I would roust them out of bed.
The phone rang only once, and then there was a series of clicks.
A recorded message proclaimed in my ear: "We are sorry. This line has been disconnected. For more information, call during business hours, 9:00 a.m. until .…"
There were three numbers to call, but none were available at night.
I thought: *What the hell?* I hung up and dialed again. Same message.
Scenarios raced like wildfire through my mind. Why had they disconnected? Changed the number for security reasons? Sold the house and moved? Changed their phone service?
*Something else? Ohmigod!*
Quickly I dialed up Mom's cell phone. "No longer in service." Thomas Bell's … the same.
Icy dread raced down my spine. Something was wrong. I refused to let myself think what …
They had no idea where I'd been for the past year, and there was no one who could have told them. I had not used my phone while I was on the island, and I was unreachable in an emergency. Only three people there would have recognized the name of Gregory House. That contingency had never occurred to me.
With my heart in my throat, I dialed Mom's attorney, Luther Finn, in Lexington. The phone rang six times before it was answered by a sleepy baritone voice.
"Hullo … ?"
"Mr. Finn? Luther? This is Gregory House. I apologize for waking you, but I can't get in touch with my mother. Can you tell me where she is? I keep getting the message that their phones have all been disconnected …"
There was a long, awkward silence. Static crackled on the line.
I knew what the answer would be.
"Greg? Gregory House? My God, we tried to get in touch with you six months ago. I'm so very sorry, Greg. Your mother … and her husband, Thomas Bell … they are both deceased …"
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