County Line Road (12 page)

Jimmy heard clattering sounds, muffled voices and felt himself being jostled around. He could hear but not see yet. As his vision cleared up, he saw the red Emergency sign as the paramedics wheeled him into ER on a stretcher.

He lifted his head and saw another stretcher being pushed through the doors ahead of him. He wondered if it was Rich, but he couldn’t see. A blinding pain shot through him when he moved, so he tried to stay very still.

As they moved him through the ER doors into a bay, he saw Rich in the next bed. A curtain separated them. Jimmy could hear the nurses and the doctor calling out medical terms.

A nurse kept saying, “What is your name? Can you hear me?”

It sounded like a TV show to him.

Jimmy said aloud to the curtain, “Rich, his name is Rich.”

The nurse leaned around the curtain and said, “What did you say?” It was Corrine, Linda’s co-worker.

Jimmy pointed in the direction of the voices. “My brother. His name is Rich.”

Corrine told the other nurse and Jimmy heard her using his name as she tried to get him to respond.

Rich was silent.

The fact that Rich did not respond began to make its way into Jimmy’s fuzzy brain as he laid there, staring up at the bright lights on the ceiling. He tried to filter out all the other noises so he could hear when Rich replied.

The staff bustled around him, moving in well-established routines. He heard a baby cry and a mother try to soothe it by hushing him, but it was in Spanish and Jimmy didn’t understand what she said. Not that he was capable of comprehending much. Jimmy rolled his head to look around him. An elderly man sat in a chair pulled close to a woman under blankets in the bed across from him. They were silent.

Then he heard Linda’s voice in the bay next to him.

“Oh, my God!” Linda said. “That’s my stepson. Rich! Can you hear me?”

“Linda, you shouldn’t be in here,” Corrine said to her.

Linda didn’t listen but began patting Rich, feeling his legs and trying to get to the rest of him.

“Stop!” The other nurse said and grabbed her.

“We’re doing everything we can for both of them,” the nurse said.

“Both? Jimmy’s here?” Linda seemed confused. She whipped the curtain aside and saw Jimmy in the next bed.

As she rushed to him, her sweater caught on Rich’s bed frame and snagged. The pocket ripped open and pills spilled out of her sweater and rolled all over the floor.

“What the —,” the nurse said. She scooped up a handful and recognized them right away. “These are from our pharmacy. Is that where you got these?”

Linda scrambled to gather the pills, crawling around on the floor on her hands and knees, stuffing the pills in her pockets.

“Linda, get up,” Corinne said.

“What are you doing with steroids?” the other nurse continued. “Are you selling these? To who? Answer me!”

“I’m not telling you anything!” Linda screamed at her.

“Linda!” The head nurse rushed in. “What are you doing?” The nurse quickly grasped what was going on and reached for the phone on the wall. “Security! Get down to ER trauma room 1 stat!”

“Don’t move,” she said to Linda. She grabbed Linda by the arm.

Linda looked up, wild eyed, pills in her hands, her hair hanging in her face. She looked down at the pills in her hands and up at Rich on the table. Fear contorted her face and a cry came from her that made the staff stop for a moment.

The nurse was the first to move and grabbed Linda up off the floor and shoved her out, practically dragging her down the hall to an office where she pushed Linda inside.

The security guard arrived and the nurse pointed to the office. “Arrest her, for stealing pills from the hospital. I have a patient to help.”

She ran back to Rich where the staff was cutting his shirt off.

Jimmy heard a doctor say to prep Rich for surgery.

As if in a dream, Jimmy watched his stepmother get handcuffed and taken away and his brother rolled down the hall to the operating room. He laid there like a man who could not speak. The look on his face was one of someone from another land thrust into a strange country full of crazy people.

He realized a nurse was talking to him. “Your brother’s going into surgery. We’ll call your father.”

Jimmy shook out his legs and arms as he stood at the start line. He bounced on his toes, enjoying the feel of his new running shoes.

Directly at the side of the track were the stands. The university stadium was lined with banners that displayed the Clemson colors and mascot. Students and other families were crowded into the stands, but Jimmy could see Allison, his father, his mother and Rich in the front row. Rich’s bandages showed from under the sleeve of his t-shirt, something Jimmy knew Rich showed off on purpose. His family stood side by side, waiting for the race to begin, but Jimmy knew he’d already won. Linda admitted everything, and his dad actually admitted it to Jimmy. It was the first time Jimmy felt that his father made him feel important.

He crouched into position at the start line and looked at his competitors to the left and right of him. He touched his fingers to the track. His trademark smile came across his face as the guy next to him looked over at Jimmy. Jimmy’s favorite Lynyrd Skynrd song began to play in his head and he grinned at the guy, saying with his smile, Ain’t no way you gonna’ win this one. Man, senior year is gonna’ be great.

Marie Etzler lives in Florida with her husband and two dogs. She has been writing since the third grade. Her first publication was in Seventeen Magazine. She is currently working on a screenplay. Her blog is
http://metzler.wordpress.com