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CHAPTER 19, EXCERPT 1
Sunday noon and they were releasing him from the hospital. Just another lousy Sunday for Frank Ford. He couldn’t stop worrying about the bill. A goddamn overnight stay in the hospital for Christ sake. Couldn’t stop obsessing about it. It was stuck there bothering him, staying in his thoughts, just kept looping around….
The tall gray-haired doctor with the friendly eyes—not an arrogant prick like Frank had expected—had told him obsessive thinking was one symptom you might get with a brain injury, a concussion. Also told him it would be a while before he felt right again and left it at that. Frank couldn’t help but like the guy, especially after the man seemed to accept Frank’s explanation of his injury, Frank saying it was the result of a fall off a ladder onto a wooden deck. The benevolent Doc never brought up Frank’s appearance upon admission, or the stink of booze and puke that was undoubtedly unavoidable.
And Frank was feeling a little better now, at least sometimes. He’d have his moments when he believed he was improving but usually as soon as the thoughts passed by he’d dive back down into the depths and wallow around in the mud for a while playing the game of What Tortuous Thought Will Come Next? A game he was getting pretty good at. And although it was getting a little easier to focus, nausea was there most of the time and periodically he’d get hit with a case of nerves for no seeming reason he could identify, attacks from out of nowhere turning him cold and anxious until they faded away. And headaches still lingered.
So he was riding it out.
Another worm wriggling between his ears seemed to be trying to tell him something. His own words were coming back to him, some of his past thoughts on repeat. Went back to that night at the mouth of the Lester River talking to Mr. Pills, Frank telling Pills it took two people to work a seine. Frank was just riffing at the time but the bit kept popping back into his head and he couldn’t figure out what it meant, couldn’t see the significance. Was his subconscious trying to clue him in or was it brain damage? Were the circuits misfiring, sending out false signals? And what did it have to do with the image of a smelt swimming freely into the maw of a dip net, the image currently carrying a particularly stinging sort of significance to him.
You are the dip net; I am the smelt…
Sitting in a wheelchair watching the two main women in his life huddling together up ahead at the nurses’ station, Frank had a vague hunch that the winged beast in his nightmare had some connection to things, some deeper meaning. The beast had two heads—and the words that kept repeating in his head were It takes two people to work a seine. But it was probably just some inappropriate mixing of brain functions due to the concussion.
Nevertheless, the line kept repeating there like a flashing neon sign.
And shit, besides everything else, now he had to deal with his anxious, worried mother and also a girlfriend who seemed to be steadily forging her retreat from the train wreck known as Frank Ford. Both women had been at his side in the hospital for extended periods, and Nikki had brought him some clean clothes from the syrup can, but now they were both waiting for him with concerned looks on their faces as the nurse wheeled him along.
And, man, he felt like a royal dick, having to ride in a wheelchair.
He got signed out and the nurse wheeled him down to the main entrance and his mom stood there looking worried and overwrought while Nikki went to get the car. Then she came rolling up the ramp in the red Honda and he and his mom got in, mom in the front seat. Nikki drove to mom’s building first, and of course Joan had to express how worried she was. “I already lost one son, Frank,” she said. “Don’t be the second. That would kill me.” And of course he never said to her that he’d gotten hurt in the process of searching for Ray-Ray’s killer, a process she’d urged him toward. And, yeah, sure, he’d made a little detour that caused some problems. But she’d made him feel guilty for not pursuing it and was now making him feel guilty for pursuing it. So what if he got a little dinged up in the process, eh?
Frank’s mother got out of the Honda with tears in her eyes and a wadded up tissue in her hand and went up to her apartment, Frank thinking she’d soon be smoking cigs and drinking coffee until she was a ball of nerves and a had an excuse for another Valium.
Mother’s little helpers.
A pharmacist’s dream.
(To be continued)
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