Being Henry David - By Cal Armistead Page 0,38
something. And it’s important somehow. But why? Like the rest of my memories, its significance is always just out of reach.
Underwater there is no time and yet time passes, until I find myself restless with life under the dead leaves and pondweed and invisible jellyfish of Walden. I think you’re ready, Henry tells me at last, and even though I’m scared to go back, I agree. The sun breaks through the surface of the water, tries to reach me with healing fingers of light. So I kick my feet and push myself back to the air and sunlight and life. Ready now for whatever is next.
“Well, look who’s back.”
Thomas sits in a small wooden chair, big arms resting on his knees, watching me. I’m in a blue-painted bedroom with a slanted ceiling, and the sun shines in the window, too bright. I squint against it, but notice the headache is finally gone. I sit up, too fast, see little bursts of light flashing in front of my eyes, then lean back against a pile of pillows somebody has tucked under my head.
“Whoa, easy, Hank. You’re still weak,” Thomas says.
I’m wearing a white T-shirt I don’t recognize and green plaid pajama pants, probably Thomas’s. I lift up the edge of the shirt and see a square of gauze taped onto my skin. When I press on it, it’s sore, but not on fire like it was.
“You had a nasty cut there. It got infected and you’ve been in and out of consciousness for about twenty-four hours,” he tells me in a slow, calm voice so I can absorb it all. “I almost gave in and took you to the hospital a couple times, but I figured we’d wait things out if we could. You were really adamant about that. A couple more hours though, and I would’ve taken you in, no matter what you said.”
A woman with short black hair and about six silver earrings in each ear comes into the room and hands a green mug of coffee to Thomas. “Ahh, you’re awake,” she says with a big smile like she knows me. She’s probably thirtyish like Thomas, and pretty in a Goth-lite kind of way. Her hand on my forehead is cool and smells like vanilla. “I figured after the fever broke in the night, you’d be back among the living today.”
“Hank, this is Suzanne. She’s a friend of mine. And, lucky for both of us, she’s also a nurse.”
“Hey there, Hank,” she says, in this gentle voice exactly like you’d expect from a nurse. “It took a whole lot of antibiotic cream and cold washcloths but we finally got your fever and that nasty infection under control.”
Cold washcloths and clothes I don’t recognize. My legs twitch. This nurse lady probably saw me naked, and I wasn’t conscious enough to remember it. I stare at a tiny diamond stud in the left side of her nose and think about this.
“We considered leeches, but they’re hard to come by this time of year.” I can tell Thomas says this to make Suzanne smile and she does, although she rolls her eyes at me like we share a joke.
“So how you feeling, Hank?” she asks. “Kind of like you got hit by a bus?”
I almost say no, it was more like a truck, but all I can do is shrug and nod, like I’ve forgotten how to speak.
Suzanne pats me on the shoulder like I’m her favorite patient. “You must be starving. Ready to eat something?”
I’m aware of the hollow place in my gut, and find my voice. “Yes. Please.”
“Great. I’ll see what I can whip up for you in Thomas’s kitchen.”
We listen to her footsteps descend the wooden stairs.
“Your girlfriend?” I ask Thomas.
He taps a fingernail on the green mug in his big hands, and his face reddens. It’s kind of funny—this big, Harley-riding, tattooed guy blushing over a girl. “Maybe. We’ve kind of bonded over this past day or so. I guess I can thank you for that.”
“You’re welcome,” I say.
Thomas clears his throat, and I know he’s holding back, wanting to ask me why I have a knife injury, why I freaked out at the library, why I fell out of the sky and into his life a week ago.
“I just want you to know,” he says instead, “that I’ve been in trouble myself, Hank. When I was younger, I got on the wrong side of the law a couple times and had to learn some lessons the