Black Water (28 page)

“No.”

Ball took a deep breath, and he and Wade shared a look of concern. Ball then looked back to Hub as if mulling something over. Finally, he made a decision and slapped the desk top with the flat of his hand. “Dr. Wade? I don’t want to wait on this. I want the X-rays done today; in fact, if we can, right now! The clock’s ticking. I want more urine and blood samples, also. And it wouldn’t hurt to make a couple of follicle and dermatological tests. I want to get to the bottom of this!” He turned his attention to Hub. “It’ll take a couple of days to get everything back, but in the meantime, if the pain increases, I’ll authorize the use of two pills a day. But I can not warn you strongly enough, no matter what, you do not, under any circumstances, take more than two in a twenty-four-hour period. Have you taken one yet today?”

“You want more blood ‘n I gotta pee in ‘nother bottle?” Hub asked, astonished. “And what’s that fockel ‘n dermawhatchamacallit shit?”

“Yes, Mr. Lusaw,” Ball said sharply, “I want more blood, I want more urine, and I want it now! I’m sorry, but this could be important. Now, answer me, have you taken one of those pills today?”

“One, early this mornin’,” Hub replied. He nodded in Wade’s direction and added, tersely, “He gave me one yesterdee ‘n I upchucked last night, ‘n I hadn’t done that ‘fore I took th’damn pill.”

“No no no no,” Ball said, shaking his head. “You can’t do that. Dr. Wade did the right thing. The timing of you taking the medication and vomiting was purely coincidental. If anything, it confirms our suspicions. The last thing I want to do, Mr. Lusaw, is frighten you…but we need to move on this. Now.” He stood up, crossed to the counter, and poured a glass of water. He pulled another pill bottle from the cupboard, shook one out, and handed it and the water glass to Hub. “I want you to take another one right now.”

Hub reluctantly helt his hand out, and Ball placed the pill in his palm. Hub took the glass, and Ball watched him wash it down.

“I apologize for being short with you,” Ball continued, “and I know you think this is all happening too fast, when actually, it’s probably been coming on for some time and it’s just been so gradual you didn’t notice it ‘til it’s too late.”

If he thought that was gonna help, he was badly mistaken. The only thing Hub heard was, “til it’s too late.” Somethin’ else to add to “he’s got a right t’be concerned” and the two “just t’be on the safe sides.”

“Sorry,” Ball said, “bad choice of words,” but it was too late to yank ‘em back. It was like when Judge Parks told the jury to forget what Sam Dimwiddie’d said about a hammer handle bein’ shoved up between a young pretty girl’s legs. Ball took the glass and set it on the counter. “There are actions that can be taken to fight it, but until we get the results back we don’t really have anything concrete to discuss.” He stood up and nodded to Pickering. “X-ray, now, please.”

Pickering stepped to Hub’s chair and tapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s go.” Hub rose, trance-like, and he and Pickering went into the next room.

Forty-five excruciating hours later, Pickering ushered Hub yet one more time into Wade’s office. Wade wasn’t there, but Ball was behind the desk. He stood and offered his hand. “Hub, come in, come in, sit down.” Pickering took his customary position beside the door. Ball looked Hub over, doctor-like, and asked, “How’re you feeling?”

“Awright,” Hub replied, worried-patient-like.

“Is the discomfort better? About the same? Worse? What?”

Hub’d always been reluctant to let his feelings show, but that was before he’d been told he could possibly be in a world a shit. “I b’lieve it might be a little worse.”

“Yes, well, nature o’ the beast.”

“Listen,” Hub said abruptly, “you didn bring me back here t’yammer about th’nature o’ th’beast, whatever th’Hell ‘at means, so let’s have it.”

Ball took a second to sift through his thoughts and then, “No, you’re right. I didn’t.” Then, right smack between the horns, he clobbered him. “You’re out o’ road, Hub. You got a cancer.” He swallowed nervously. “A bad one.”

Hub woulda sucked in an involuntary lungful of air if he hadn’t quit breathin’ altogether.

Then Ball hit him with the capper. “A real bad one.”

Naturally, Hub hadn’t known what to expect when he walked through the door, but whatever he’d imagined, it wasn’t any shit like that. He thought maybe he’d have to take more pills, or possibly get whittled on—some little blackened, malfunctioning hoomahotchee somewhere in his guts, somehow gone bad and had to be removed. But…out o’ road? Cancer? A bad one? A REAL bad one? His heart was poundin’ like a bass drum. His bunghole twitched like it was gonna unload on him, and he was afraid he was gonna fall off the chair and smack his face on the floor. Finally, he remembered how to make his mouth work. “I’m dyin’?” It was a desert-dry croak.

“Yes,” was all Ball said. It was all he could say. It didn’t seem sufficient, but he didn’t have a lot o’ leeway. It was definitely a yes-or-no thing.

“How’s ‘at happen?” Hub asked, swirling in a tornado of confusion.

“I could give you a hundred answers, Hub,” Ball said, compassionately, “but cancer isn’t that simple. Other than this, you’re as healthy as a horse. You see, everyone has cancer cells. It’s a natural part of the system. You could go your whole life, and they don’t mean a hill o’ beans. Then, for some unknown, unfathomable reason, they’ll turn on you. Some do—some don’t.”

“Me…,” Hub started.

“They did,” Ball finished. “Hard.”

“You’re really sure,” Hub pushed. He hadn’t heard much o’ what Ball said after “Yes” had followed “I’m dyin’?”

“I ran the tests every way I could.” He gestured at Hub’s file layin’ open on his desk. “There’s absolutely no doubt. Not a whit.”

“How long’ve I got?”

Ball looked back over his shoulder at Pickering. “Sir? Could I ask you to leave us alone for a bit?” Pickering wasn’t supposed to leave a prisoner unattended. “I won’t tell if you don’t. Please.”

Pickering, the soft-hearted humanitarian that he was, mouthed that he’d be right outside and exited. The door clicked shut.

“The way it works,” Ball almost whispered. Both of ’em were leaned for’ard with their elbows on their knees and their hands clasped, one looking like a preacher and the other, a man who needed one. “It’ll get progressively worse. Slowly at first, for three or four months.”

Hub sat up real quick, bug-eyed, this bein’ the first he’d heard of an approximate time. The dark at the end o’ the tunnel. The finish line. Literally. “Three ‘r four months,” he mumbled, another shade lighter. He felt like lookin’ for a clock so he could watch his life tick away.

“At most,” Ball continued. “After that…it’ll pick up dramatically. But the last month….” He just shook his head slowly, imagining the pain-riddled end. He was reluctant to go on, but it wouldn’t be fair to Hub to drag it out. “The last month, Hub, you just won’t die quick enough.”

“Oh, shit,” Hub hissed through bleached lips. Tiny little muscles twitched all over his face. “Oh, shit!” He slid down in the chair, leaned his head over the back, put the heels of his hands to his temples, and pushed. Then he quickly sat back up and pounded his knees. “Shit! Shit! Shit! God Dammit!”

Hub was takin’ it ever bit as badly as Ball had anticipated. “I’m sorry,” he said, then stepped to the sink for a glass o’ water, filled it up, and handed it to Hub. Hub’s Adam’s apple jumped up and down like a monkey on a stick, gulpin’ it down. Ball took the glass back, set it on the counter, and went to his chair. “Listen,” he said, but Hub wasn’t. “Hub, listen to me.” Hub looked up. “I don’t want to get your hopes up, but Dr. Wade and I had an idea. We talked it over, and he said you’d been up for parole three or four times.”

Hub’s mouth said, “Four,” of its own volition.

“Okay. In thirty years, your record’s been pretty good. Dr. Wade and I want to give the board a recommendation that you be released so you don’t…”—again, he was reluctant to continue—“so you don’t have to die...in here…in prison.”

“You think they’d go with it?” Hub asked, slathered in a cold, clammy sweat.

“Well, naturally, I can’t speak for the board, but it couldn’t hurt t’try.”

Hub pictured dyin’ the way Ball’d described. “They ain’t nothin you’cn do? Ya’can’t just go in ‘n chop it out?”

“No, no, no,” Ball said, sittin’ up and shakin’ his head. “Not in here, no. We’re not set up for somethin’ like that.”

Was that a glimmer Hub saw? A straw bobbin on the River Styx? “But it’s possible?”

“Oh, yes, sure,” Ball hmmphed, disgustedly, “in this day and age. Plus, if you had the money.”

“How’s ‘at?”

“It’s a shitty thing, but yes, if you had the money, there’s a surgery that could possibly save your life, but, Hub, it’s very expensive.”

“You mean if I had th’money, I’cd get it cut out?”

“I said it was possible. It’s not like taking out your tonsils or removing a toe. It’s chancy, but, yes, possibly the difference between your living and dying is the almighty greenback.” He stood up and patted Hub on the shoulder, then went to the door and opened it for Pickering. “Sir? He can go now.”

Pickering entered, but Hub, still lost in thought, hadn’t moved. “Hub,” he said, quietly. Hub looked up. “Let’s go,” and he nodded to the door at his back. Hub stood mechanically and walked to the door.

“Dr. Wade and I’ll talk to the board,” Ball said.

Hub nodded, lookin’ both hopeful and hopeless.

An hour later, Ball exited Warden Gordon Grundheim’s office. The Warden was a well-fed, ruddy-cheeked Teuton with hands like hamhocks and legs like oak stumps.

“So,” Warden Grundheim said, “I ‘magine he took it pretty hard.”

“Oh, yes, I know I would,” Ball said. “Believe me, I’ve put a lot into this, and when it’s all said and done, you have to go with your gut, and I believe we’re doing the right thing. And like we’d discussed, you’ll keep it to yourself?”

“Yes, yes, of course.”

“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your help,” Ball said and stuck his hand out.

“I wouldn’t want to be in Hub’s shoes,” Warden Grundheim said, shakin’ his hand. “Sit out thirty years just to have it end like that.”

One week later, Pickering escorted Hub to the Parole Evaluation Room. His symptoms had increased, he was pale, and he had shed three pounds. A week, gone. Four months (at most, Ball had said) was sixteen weeks, and the achingly slow wheels o’ justice had just gobbled one sixteenth o’ the rest of his life.

The Evaluation Room had the same personality as the rest o’ the prison. Sterile and cold. Heartless. Soulless. Seated on the other side of a large, scarred table were the trio who would hear his plea and determine a possible different future.

The fellow seated in the middle—undoubtedly the big cheese—was a fat, bald-headed, forty-five-year-old, sweaty son of a bitch with a haughtier-than-thou attitude. He coolly nodded to the wooden chair in front center o’ the table. “You can siddown.” It was more an order than an allowance.

Hub’s scootin’ the chair back made an irritating, grating noise, shattering the ambiance. The trio’s faces advertised their disapproval. Hub’s showed he didn’t give a shit. He figured that
You can siddown
was as close to an introduction as he was gonna get, so he gave ’em his own names. The aforementioned, rotund, ruddy-cheeked cherub would henceforth be Butter Ball. The one to his left—a buzzard-beaked, forty-year-old, desiccated spinster who probably hadn’t been porked in a very, very long time (if ever), and probably wouldn’t be any time in the foreseeable future— would be Hawkface. On Butter Ball’s right, sat a skinny, fifty-one-year-old who’d be Go-Funny Eye, so named ‘cause one bulbous orb stared directly at you while the other looked off north by northeast. He reminded Hub of a lizard-like thing he’d seen pictures of in a dog-eared
National Geographic
that could work its eyes like that. He wondered if it was possible for the fella to look at, and think about, two things at once. Or, more likely, just be continually confused.

Butter Ball flipped through Hub’s file for no other reason than to make him wait. Prisoner fates rested in his chubby hands, and he was there to let ’em know it. Finally, he looked up. “Hubert Marshall Lusaw,” he began, nodding to the file. “ Mm mm mm mm mm Mm! Boy howdy, son, you got quite a hist’ry here. A vi’lent hist’ry.” He clasped his hands, laid ’em on the folder, and looked at Hub over his half glasses. “Very vi’lent.”

“Very vi’lent,” Go-Funny said, confirming fat boy’s proclamation.

Hawkface just pursed her lips and nodded. She didn’t wanna be left out, but felt a third verbal confirmation might be overkill.

“Forty years,” Butter Ball continued, “for beatin’ two fellers t’death.” He looked back at the file. “The Kooms Brothers.”

“Komes,” Hub corrected him.

All three scowled at him. It was obvious they didn’t cotton to bein’ corrected by anybody, and especially by an ugly double murderer with weird hair and a malformed arm.

“Komes,” Butter Ball said, distinctly, acidly. “Thank you so much for settin’ me straight on that.” Then, “This’s yer fifth p’role hearing. You’s turned down on th’others due t’attitude, ‘n aftah spendin all o’ two minutes with ya, it’s easy t’see why. You’d think with a p’role on th’line, you wouldn’t be so up’ty!”

Hawkface and Go-Funny nodded in duet.

“According t’this,” Butter Ball continued, tapping the file with a chubby knuckle, “yer a reeeeal hawd case. That right, Mr. Lusaw, ah you a hawd case?”

Six eyes, five aimed in Hub’s direction, one toward Saskatchewan, waited expectantly for an answer that wasn’t comin’. Hawkface finally cracked the silence. “You ain’t tryin’ very hard t’show you turned around.”

Butter Ball pulled a paper from the file. “Atchur last hearin’ you’s asked if you’s sorry for killin ’em ‘n you said yer only regret waaaaaas…” while he looked for the quote, “Yeah, here we go, ‘that you couldn’t kill ’em but once.’” He slid the paper back in the file. “Mm mm mm, boy, that’s perty cold. You still feel that away?”

“Damn right,” Hub replied.

That caught ’em off guard. They were far more used to “Yes, sir” and “No, ma’am” and “Thank ya s’much.” The Grim Reaper was tappin’ on his shoulder and he was much more concerned about that than what they thought of him.