A Storied Man

(click here to go back to Part Eleven)

“You’ll see her, soon,” Susan said. She looked in her purse and pulled out a blister pack of Nicorette gum. “By the way, kiddo, I found out who your bathroom hero is.” She pushed a piece through the foil backing and tossed it into her mouth.

“Who?”

“He’s a U.S. Marshall. He was assigned to check in on shitface Larry Outhouse, because he used to be some kind of mob guy or something. When he found out from Matt’s mom that we all came to the hospital, he came up here looking for information.”

“So, when he told you he was a student, he was trying to pump you,” Ronnie said.

“Watch it, mister.”

“You made me this way.”

“Yeah, yeah. So, anyway, he just happened to have to pee when he walked in and found you and Outhouse fighting.”

“It wasn’t really a fight, Mom.”

“I know, sweetie.” She reached up and rubbed his neck lightly. “At least you got your ass kicked by a mobster instead of some pansy teenage football player.”

“Again, he sneaked up behind me. Um, Mom?” He was trying to find a good way to put his next point.

“Yes?”

“Can you quit breathing your Nicorette breath on me? It’s pretty bad.”

——-

Ronnie sat on a chair next to Trena’s bed.

“Look, I know you’re probably mad at me right now. I would be.” He turned away and put a hand to his face, but she couldn’t tell whether he was wiping away tears or touching his bandages.

She could tell he was upset. Maybe even crying. She put her hand on his for just a moment before grabbing up the Mont Blanc, then wrote as much as she could at one time.

“I know it was an accident. Don’t worry. Sorry Larry hurt you.” She couldn’t believe it when her mom told her what he had done to Ronnie. “Thanks for being nice. I can’t see you any more.”

He looked confused, then concerned. “Why? Is something wrong. Oh, God, I knew it.”

She raised her hand and waved it back and forth, indicating he had misunderstood. Her arm and hand needed a rest, so she just lay her hand on Ronnie’s again and left it there a few minutes. He didn’t move to make any affectionate gesture, but he didn’t try to take his hand away, either.

She shored up her courage, questioned herself again, and then wrote, “Heard of Witness Protection Program?” If someone caught her telling him that, she would get in big trouble.

“Yeah. Are you in that?”

The pen moved so smoothly across the paper, Trena wondered how much the doctor paid for it. “Got in just before moved here. Larry witnessed something, but also did something.” She knew her writing made her look dumb, but didn’t know how much longer her arm and hand would cooperate. Her words now were more expensive than the pen.

“Did he… kill somebody?” Ronnie asked.

“Don’t know,” she wrote. “Think so. He called old buddies. Mom and me have to move again. Change names.”

Trena’s mom walked in. Ronnie turned his back to her, grabbed the paper, wadded it into a ball, and put it in his mouth. He chewed a few times, then swallowed.

——-

Man, that’s not all it’s cracked up to be, Ronnie thought as the balled up note scratched its way down his throat.

He grimaced. Trena smiled.

“Oh, thank God you don’t have that tube down your throat any more. They told me they had extubated, but I couldn’t believe it until I saw it,” Trena’s mom said.

“Extubated?” Ronnie asked.

He felt a tug on his shirt. Trena was writing something else. “She was a nurse,” it read.

“Sorry, that means they removed the breathing tube,” Ms. Outhouse said. “Maybe soon we’ll hear your voice again, Latrena.”

Ronnie chuckled. You’ve got to be kidding.

Trena wrote, “What’s funny?”

“Your name’s ‘Latrena Outhouse?’”

“Shut up,” she wrote, and then made a mock angry face while squinting one eye.

The Witness Protection Program has a sense of humor.

“Ronnie, could you give us a moment?” Ms. Outhouse asked.

Ronnie walked out to the critical care waiting room. A ceiling-mounted television was tuned to CNN, something he rarely watched. A mugshot of a familiar face appeared onscreen beside the news anchor’s head. It was Larry Outhouse, but that wasn’t the name on the screen.

He read aloud, “‘Lead-head Larry Olivetti.’ Son of a bitch.”

He reached and punched the volume up a few notches.

“… apparent strangulation from behind. Local authorities say it’s the first time the city has seen an indicted prisoner killed in his cell. Officials say approximately 17% of those in the Witness Protection Program return to crime. Asked about Olivetti, a U.S. Marshal who preferred to remain anonymous said, quote, ‘Records show he made a call to his old mob friends, probably because he couldn’t resist the life. Unfortunately for him, that lead to his death,’ unquote. We’ll be back right after this.”

Ronnie smiled, then squinted in pain. He imagined what would have happened had he never walked across the parking lot that night to get Trena. With that one handful of pebbles, he had set in motion a chain of events that still sounded unbelievable. Now, he had a friend he would never see again, who might never walk again, and a face forever changed.

Because he was horny.

The End

Note: Now, click here to go on and read “Apartment Life Returns.”

(go back to Part Ten)

Susan sat with Ronnie and listened as the doctor told them her son was now a surgical patient. They needed to stop the bleeding and repair the damage, and worry about reconstructive work later.

Reconstructive? Oh, my beautiful baby. It was vain, but she was proud that along with his other great qualities, her younger son had become a handsome young man. She liked it when she walked through the mall with Ronnie and girls noticed him.

“Will he look a lot different when it’s over?” Susan asked.

“We’ll do our best to restore his appearance.” He turned to Ronnie. “With injuries this severe, you may also notice a permanent change in your voice. It depends how nasal your voice was before the incident. That part’s more difficult for us to restore to its original state.”

Susan flashed back to a friend of hers who was in a major car crash. His face had a rude introduction to the windshield, and years later his nose still looked wrong and his voice sounded more whiny. She didn’t want that for her boy.

Her hatred for Outhouse grew.

——-

“We want to see if Trena can breathe on her own now,” the doctor said. He smelled of Old Spice. Trena thought it strange for such a young man to smell like her grandfather.

“It’s been three days, doctor. What does it mean if she can’t?” her mother asked.

Still groggy from what she guessed must have been a long sleep, Trena kept her eyes closed so she could listen in on the conversation.

“It just means that we intubate her again and keep waiting for her body to heal. We still believe she’s in spinal shock and can make a full recovery.”

Her mom squeezed her hand. Hey, I felt that! She squeezed back.

“Oh my God! She just squeezed my hand!”

Let’s see what else we can do.

She lifted her mom’s hand.

“She’s moving! She’s moving! That’s my girl!”

She dropped that hand and tried the other. Nothing. Dammit! She still couldn’t move anything below her waist, either, but she could barely sense her mother’s tickling fingers on her feet.

That was the happiest she’d seen her mom in months.

The hand she could move was her left — her writing hand. She had done a lot of passive listening the past few days. It was time for her to ask and to tell. She pantomimed holding a pen and writing.

“I believe your daughter wants to tell us something, Ms. Outhouse,” the doctor said. He pulled a large, sleek pen from the front pocket of his white jacket and placed it gently in Trena’s hand. “Mont Blanc. You deserve it.” He looked around the room.

“Oh, I think I have something,” her mom said. She grabbed her purse from a chair and rummaged around in it. “Your clipboard, doctor?”

The doctor handed it over.

Trena wrote, “Larry going away?”

Her mom’s smile turned to a frown. “It doesn’t look good, honey.”

Looks good to me. She hated to see her mom hurt, but knew that she would realize she was better off without him.

“Doctor, could we have a word alone?” her mom asked.

“Of course. Take your time.” He turned and walked out.

“I’m sorry you haven’t seen much of me since this happened to you. After they took Larry in, I –” she sobbed, but quickly composed herself.

“I had a lot of things to take care of. We’re going to be starting fresh again, without him.”

Yes! She wrote, “We’ll be happy.”

“That means changing our names and moving again. But first I need to ask you a question, sweetie.”

Again? The asshole strikes again. Trena raised her eyebrows to show she had her attention.

“Did that Batson boy push you down the stairs?”

She still couldn’t shake or nod her head. She was having some trouble now holding the pen, but managed to scratch out, “Call him Ronnie” before her hand gave out and the Mont Blanc fell to the floor.

Her mother picked it up and put it back on the clipboard. Trena took a minute to work up the nerve to make a leap of faith, then picked up the pen and wrote, “No.”

“Did he do anything inappropriate before that?”

Is that her way of asking, because she thinks something happened but doesn’t want to accuse me?

She scratched out, “No,” before dropping the pen again.

——-

“It’s been three days. I want to see her. I have to talk to her and make sure she knows I didn’t mean to push her down the stairs.”

“I know, I know. I’m trying to find a good time to sneak you up there.”

What has she told everybody? I guess nothing, or they would have been after me by now. Oh, man, can she even talk? Oh, shit. What if she’s so messed up still that she can’t talk?

“I just really need to see her.”

(continue to the conclusion of “Apartment Life”)