Clouded Rainbow (15 page)

I was involved in the accident
, Roger’s mind explained.

“I’d hate to be this guy,” the lawyer rattled off.

Roger remained detached and aloof. The lawyer squinted, assuming Roger was being coy. Little did he know, however, that while Roger’s body remained emotionless, his mind screamed with emotion.

“Hey, are you alright?” the lawyer asked.

Roger failed to respond. The lawyer shook his head and trudged off. He thought he was doing the bum a favor by indulging in conversation, but his one-sided chat only infuriated him.

A cool breeze whisked through and brushed the newspapers, causing them to crinkle in unison. Roger maintained focus on the image as the twinge in his body seemed to intensify. Then, his mind shifted to the thought of Lois. For a moment, he prepared to dart toward her rescue on the Pleasant Place Bridge, but he quickly recognized it was useless. Although he had slept through the passing on his journey into the city, Jack the trucker explained the bridge’s reopening. Roger’s black, late-model SUV was gone forever, but he hoped the fate of his wife was not the same. Roger yearned for her now more than ever.

 “Lois, where are you?” Roger asked under his breath.

He used all of his energy to channel his thoughts to the aligning puzzle pieces. Suddenly, he found himself trapped in the middle of his vision. He felt like a puppet forced to follow his shell through the world of his distressed mind.

Roger was back driving his SUV. He glanced over and saw his wife in a killer black dress that contoured her curvy figure. The cruising V8 engine purred like a well-tamed lion. Up ahead, the Pleasant Place Bridge stood tall under the night sky. Then, in a burst, Roger’s view filled with erupting flames. He heard screams of panic as he attempted to navigate through the fiery terror. His resistance was worthless as flames burst into the cabin. Lois suddenly became trapped. She cried for help. Roger tried to break his horrifying trance, but it was useless.

Suddenly, he heard a raspy voice, “Hey! You okay?”

Roger searched for the voice in his vision, but an inferno consumed his view. The voice returned, this time more prominent, “Yo, can you hear me?”

Roger snapped out of his coma. He blinked his eyes rapidly as the newspaper came back into focus.

“You alright there, mister? You don’t look so good,” the voice once again said.

Roger turned and saw a short male creature in his mid-thirties. He was barely five feet seven inches and had the face of a weasel, complete with the frail frame. Spots of food condiments splattered his ratty clothes. His hair was greasy and his teeth were yellow. The man was the type who even the rats avoided on the street.

Roger caught his breath from the abrupt sight, but the breath contained the rancid smell of perspiration infested with multiplying bacteria from weeks without a bath. He turned his head to acquire a fresh blast of night air. As Roger studied the beady-eyed man, he realized that his own appearance was not much different. While the adage explained, “opposites attract,” Roger’s luck with random strangers seemed to dwell on the lower echelon of society. The hobo reached out and patted Roger on the back. There was no way to ignore this prying person as he invaded Roger’s space. Roger figured the best thing to do was to brush the weed off his back.

“I’m okay…just…confused,” Roger replied while staring off at the traveling cars.

“You really should be careful out here. This city is dangerous at night,” the critter quickly responded.

He extended his hand with a smile. The man’s quick actions puzzled Roger, as his brain had no time to comprehend.

“Miles is the name, Miles Kay.”

Roger looked away, but his cordial behavior ingrained from his professional career forced him to reach out.

Miles’ hand was cold and felt rough like fine-grit sandpaper from years of living on the street. He was a man with a dark past, dropping out of high school, leaving an abusive home, and working odd jobs. This had been his life for years, and when he had finally exhausted the various fast food chains across the city, including Buddy Burger, the poorly educated man left for the streets. While he lacked book smarts, he made up for it with his wit and gut instincts. These kept him alive, and he used his survival tactics to keep his body fed enough so he would not starve like a homeless dog. While his outward appearance would make a paralyzed person run for his life, Roger somehow accepted him for…him.

“I’m Roger. I just had a rough day,” he said.

Miles glanced at Roger’s high pants. “Well, didn’t we all. Where’d you come from? A flood?”

“It’s a long story. I’m trying to figure out what happened yesterday.”

Roger realized he had probably said too much. He usually asked the questions at the office prying for information from clients with his subtle tactics, but on the street things seemed to be backwards. Miles appeared to flip the tables and, after all, Roger was now a client in the street man’s office. Roger turned and faltered away, hoping Miles would get the hint, but just as he stepped a few feet from his spot, Miles quickly followed.

“I’m forgetful too. I don’t even know what day it is today. Ask me if I care. Go on,” Miles insisted as he tugged Roger’s shirt.

“I can tell you don’t care. Yesterday…well, I’m trying to figure out where I was,” Roger stuttered.

“Why? You on the run from somebody? Do you work for the government? Well, maybe I’m asking too many questions. Okay, I will help you. Just do what my daddy always says. God rest his soul. He was a good man. Died too young.”

Roger had enough of the weasel. He shook his head and turned to walk away. This time, his steps were more prominent against the cold, hard concrete. The pain in his body suddenly subsided as the natural drug, adrenaline, flowed through his veins. Then in a flash, the leech lunged for Roger, this time using his body to block Roger’s retreat.

“Whoa! Okay. Okay. I would say to retrace your steps. What did you do from when you got up till when you didn’t remember? Then just go from there,” Miles explained.

Roger looked across the street at a blind man walking the sidewalk led by a seeing-eye dog. He pondered Miles’ advice and, while the short fellow didn’t seem to know when to stop talking, he did make an ounce of sense with his comment.

“Well, that’s actually a good idea,” Roger said as he focused on the dog looking both ways before guiding the man across the street.

“I told you my daddy was a smart man,” Miles added.

“I remember coming home from work, then seeing my wife,” Roger explained, scratching his head.

“Then?”

The vivid black and white images in the newspapers clouded Roger’s progression through his memory, but he did his best to keep his train of thought on track. He remembered the reason he gravitated to the city in the first place, the reason he trekked down the road, hitched a ride from a shameless trucker, and even fought to curb his hunger.

“I remember going to eat somewhere downtown,” he continued.

Abruptly, his mind hit a wall of fire. Roger watched as the blind man walked toward them. He was tall and wore a dark trench coat with his face covered with dark glasses, making him look out-of-place for a walk at night. The furry Labrador leading the way turned Roger’s gawks of bafflement into stares of empathy. The dog reached the two street dwellers dithering on the sidewalk and sniffed Roger’s ankle. As he felt the dog’s breath, the animal licked Roger’s exposed skin. Roger did not pull away from the dog’s warm tongue as his energy diverted to the skin of his ankle. Then the blind man passed on his way, unaware of the dog’s diversion. Suddenly, it happened, a moment of clarity. Roger looked at the bright city lights with a piece of knowledge he had so desperately sought.

“Yeah, that’s right. The Hideaway on Fourth Street. I need to get over there,” he said as he perked up.

“Hey. That’s a good idea. But Fourth Street? That’s a walk to China on foot,” Miles said.

Roger knew it was several miles from his spot, but he didn’t care. He began to walk toward the heart of the city where the next leg of his journey awaited. Miles, like a lost child, followed Roger’s lead, but then the lost businessman stopped abruptly.

“Whoa, where are
you
going?” Roger asked.

Miles licked his lips as he confided in Roger. “Hey. I wanna help you. These streets can get pretty scary at night. I know them like the back of my hand. My daddy always said help a man on a mission. Or was it beware of a man on a mission?”

“What do you want out of this? Huh?” Roger barked. He knew to be wary of people who talked fast as they usually tried to mask their agenda in words battering your ears like a prizefighter.

“Nothing, honest. Hey. I don’t have much to do. I usually just roam the streets. I don’t really have a place to live. I was staying in some guy’s car up there on the north side. It didn’t have a driver’s side door though, so it was kinda breezy at night,” Miles explained.

He looked at Roger as a person he could help, a fellow drifter with an actual purpose. Miles was being sincere when he explained his typical day. Most of the time he lived without a purpose, a feeling that was best left to the dead. He had no place to be, no errands to run, no clock to watch. The proverb asked the question whether a tree that fell in the woods made a noise if no one was there to listen to it. Miles asked himself a similar question every day, “If a bum screams before he dies on the streets, has he influenced the world in some way if no one stops to listen?”

Roger studied him and saw a twitch to his right eyelid. Although his fast-talking took some time to digest, Roger realized the man did have some interesting insight into solving his problem.

The observation from a third party may actually hold some value
, he thought.

“Okay, okay,” Roger finally replied.

Like a child getting clearance to go out and play, Miles smiled and stood next to Roger. Both men trudged down the sidewalk on their long walk through the night. Clouds enwrapped the city and stole the starry sky, but Roger didn’t need the stars for direction. He knew exactly where he had to go, a place that he hoped would hold the answer to the ultimate question—where is Lois?

16

The color blue filled the nurses’ station on the recovery floor of Southern General Hospital. It wasn’t the metaphoric color, but the literal color of the nurses’ standard issue scrubs. The hospital employed more staff nurses during the overnight hours than at any other time of the day. Their logic was that the night brought in more patients, victim to the enigma of night. Statistically, there were more car accidents, more alcohol-related injuries, and more crimes that involved violence. Something about the absence of light incited the need for medical attention and Southern General made sure the hospital was staffed accordingly. This was particularly true of the recovery floor as they received the brunt of the patients making it out of the emergency room.

There were five nurses on staff during the graveyard shift, plus a supervisor. All were female, not because of any employment prejudice, but simply because eighty percent of the hospital’s nurses were female. With this high percentage, a grouping of five females was statistically more likely. The nurses liked working the night shift on the recovery floor for the sole reason that they regarded their supervisor, Nurse Ann, as an important role model, mentor, and friend.

Things were quiet as the nurses filled out patient logs, prepared nightly drug dosages, and monitored the patients’ call buttons. Across from the nurses’ station stood a bank of elevators reflecting the light from their polished metal. Disrupting the quiet, a ding sounded. A dainty freshman nurse, Jennifer, sat directly in front of the elevators. She was compiling a list of doctors’ notes from the rounds of the day as she looked up anticipating the elevator’s occupant. Since it was past visitation hours, she figured the elevator housed one of the creepy janitors who enjoyed flirting with the nurses who fell into the eighty percent category. The doors opened as the nurse’s eyes focused on the ground. She expected to see a mop bucket, but instead she saw a pair of gleaming male dress shoes. Her eyes widened as they traveled up and saw pressed dress slacks and a dapper trench coat. Finally, her eyes landed on the handsome face of Det. Cleveland. He had a hint of stubble painting his defined face, which tickled the female nurse’s senses. She saw him sway toward her in slow motion as his alluring eyes locked with hers. The other female nurses glanced over and watched the arresting detective glide with confidence. He stopped in front of the freshman nurse and grinned.