A Vagrant Story (44 page)

“The power’s out, what can I do without morphine to shut them up?”

“You got some mouth for a doctor. Don’t you people even check up on patients?”

“And ruin the peace? The patients are locked safely in their rooms. It’s not morphine but we get the same result - silence.”

“Should I pretend I didn’t here that?”

“Judging from those rags you’re wearing I can guess you’re probably a patient here, so it wouldn’t matter what you try remember between these few hours of sobriety and the moment you forget.”

Rum could feel his fists tighten, his face red with heat and teeth churning top on bottom. “You sorry bastard. I always knew the private hospitals left the rejects behind, I never imagined there’d be someone like you.”

“What the hell do you know? I come to work. I do my job. Nobody complains so I get my job done. I do the best I can, more than some sorry bum ever-”

“Walk away doc.” Rum pressed his head up closer to the man‘s chin, face stern in his resilience. From their previous distance Rum failed to appreciate the man’s larger stature.

The doctor turned, by all appearance merely resuming lighting candles. “Something like you trying to order me around. Pathetic. Stop wandering the corridors or security will mistake you for a drug addict.  We’ve had quite a few lately and security’s keeping an eye out.”

Rum found that clenched fist of his rising slowly. He’d have smacked the doctor right over the head when Henry called from behind.

When Rum did return acknowledgment, Henry crept to the Old man‘s side. “R-Rum! W-what’s going on?”

“A disagreement with staff policy.”

“Disagreement?” Henry replied, unsure of the statement’s full meaning. He looked passed those allusive words to the doctor, who had risen from his hunching to stare Henry down.

Rum eyed the two back and forth, making an attempt to push Henry away. “Ignore that fool. You’ll get no help from him.”

“You!” the doctor yelled. “What are you doing back here?”

“M-Me?” Henry paused to contemplate the question. “W-wait … I remember you. You were the doctor who helped me escape from the police!”

“The hell you talking about?” Rum asked.

“When they took me and Alex here after the fire, the police tried to pin it on me and this doctor helped me escape. I w-wanted to thank him for … He even-”

“Shut up! Shut your damn mouth. I told you not to come back here!”

“W-well … yeah but … my friend was sick. I didn‘t have a choice.”

“I stuck my neck out for you and you don’t even have the decency to do me that one favour.”

The doctor made a violent step toward Henry, intercepted by Rum who body blocked the approach.

“Don’t make me repeat myself, doc.”

He seemed to take the warning, backing off with little joy. He did so without turning, walking backward, staring at Henry with a glare of deep contemplation.

When it seemed the doctor wouldn’t quit, Rum simply turned round to resume talking to Henry. “Ignore that freak.”

“But he-”

“I don’t want to know. If that guy did anything good for you I’d bet there was something bad behind it. Just forget that freak. C’mon, let’s go find Sierra.”

“Don’t have to. I left her on the roof. Said she needed time to think.”

“Time to think? What’s she really doing?”

“Well … to be honest, she seemed more interested in some storage crates that were left up there. It looked like junk to me but Sierra would know better.”

“Even junk’s worth something. Leave her to it, God knows we could use some cash once we get home.”

Henry didn’t reply, instead he sent a blank stare past Rum toward something else which needed no reintroduction.

Rum turned to find that doctor slowly creeping closer to them.

“Take the hint,” Rum said.

“You said your friend is on the roof?”

“The hell you gonna do, call security?”

The doctor’s lips briefly twitched with contempt, almost as quickly as he snapped from his approaching to a gentle backing off. He nodded with a kind of hostile gratitude, then turned and vanished up a stairwell.

“The hell is that guy’s problem?” Rum asked.

“He seemed nicer the first time.” Henry reminisced on it a moment and let it drop. “Will Sierra be alright?”

“No one’s ever gone down for being up on a rooftop. She’ll be fine.”

“Should we go see Alex then?”

“Sure, he might tolerate me more with you here.” 

***

Alex rested back on a pillow, looking sideways out a small window dominating one of the walls. From here he could see to the storage yard out back, illuminated by dim fog lights which flickered on edge, counting down the seconds it would take for those last few workers to finish up. Alex couldn’t help think how this hospital’s power generator must have been configured wrong, in how it cut out for the patients yet switched on so a few men could lift crates. Then again, those men were probably unionised and in possession of more rights than anyone forced to come to this place.

The snow worsened too so those workers moved faster until it seemed they’d dropped their work entirely. The way they left those struggling fog lights on would normally suggest they intended to return. So the yard stayed lit up and the snow kept building on top of all those walk in crates lining the yard, and in between the maze like spaces separating each.

“It’s not going to end soon,” a voice said from the doorway.

The blonde doctor from earlier entered, clip board in hand.

“Thought you’d forgotten about me.”

“Distanced myself. It would have been difficult to do my job with your friends in the room. I assumed you would want to know the results of your tests in private.”

“Results? I didn’t think we’d done enough tests to start talking about results.”

“Of course, with our machines down we can’t be completely certain at this stage.”

“Power looks fine from here.” Alex looked to the fog lights outside in the storage yard below.

“The storage yard runs on a separate power line. It’s been hit bad too but they squeeze out what they can.”

“If they’re not using it they could at least funnel a little power my way. Pretty sure those fog lights could power this whole floor.”

“And half the one below, but it’s not my section. I’ve no say in the matter.”

“I’m pretty sure endangering the lives of your patients goes against the Hippocratic oath.”

“Who said I’m endangering your life? As is, I don’t need machines to keep you well, only to diagnose you.”

“Didn’t know they taught guesswork in medical school.”

“There’s no guesswork. You came up positive. The only question is how positive. Right now you seem healthy enough so it’s safe to assume you‘re still in the early stages of the virus. To put it simply, you’re lucky you collapsed. If you hadn’t … well let’s just say as it is we can treat the virus. There are certain medications, but right now all you need is rest and nutrition.”

“That could be a problem.”

“I’ll do what I can for you here. Even if the diagnosis is wrong it couldn’t hurt to give you some colour in your skin. That’s all I can do for you. Your home life is outside my jurisdiction.”

“Home life?“ Alex found his head wandering back toward the snow tainted window. “This really isn’t going to end soon.”

“Depends how you deal with. It doesn’t have to be fatal … with the right nutrients.”

“I won’t have a choice in that.”

“Of course you have a choice. You can either choose to fall down and collapse dead in some gutter, feeling sorry for yourself right till the very end. Or you can get up, try to live a healthy life and do the best you can.”

“I don’t even have the option.”

“Funny, I thought homelessness was a lifestyle choice not a disability.”

“You would know?”

“I’ve worked here long enough to learn a thing or two about my patients, and how most of them view themselves. This is a good excuse for you to change.”

Alex smiled. “I knew you were a good doctor.”

“A man’s philosophy doesn‘t speak much for his ability.”

“It‘s not your philosophy. I’ve seen you work before. Maybe you don’t remember.”

The doctor shook his head, waiting patiently for an explanation.

“About a week ago there was a car crash near this hospital. When it turned out a pregnant woman was injured you came along, leaping over the car to help her.”

Smiling slightly, the doctor nodded. “Well … it wasn’t so dramatic.”

“Seemed that way to me. Either way you saved her.”

“I didn’t save her.”

“Of course you did. If you hadn’t shown-”

“I saved the baby. The mother died one day later during pre-mature birth.”

Alex gasped till. “I’m sorry. I-I thought she would turn out okay.”

“She should have. There were … complications after she arrived.

“Complications? You mean screw ups.”

“The crash didn’t kill her … this hospital did. It was my fault.”

“Your fault?”

“I never should have brought her to this place. I only did because I worked here. I thought if I could bring her in myself I could get her past the crowd. Turns out, beating the crowd can be as lethal when the people you count on don’t know what they’re doing.”

“If it’s so bad here why don’t you leave? I’m sure the private hospitals would hire you.”

“It won’t change anything. Leaving this place won’t stop patients coming here.”

“And dying here.”

“It’s only a matter of time before this eyesore closes. Until then … I’ll stay till then.”

“And where will people like me go then?”

The doctor nodded, inching his eyes toward Alex. He sighed then continued to nod. “I sometimes forget negatives can be positives to people with nothing else.”

“It’s false hope really. This place is more a giant waiting room than a hospital, except some patients get to wait on gurneys instead. I agree with what you said.”

“Which part?”

“You never should have taken that woman here. That was the first thing I thought after I saw the crash.”

“It was a bad call.”

“Made on good terms. You couldn’t just leave her lying in the road. And, come on, the baby made it.”

“Life and death, fate’s great joke. To be honest the baby wouldn’t have survived if the board hadn’t decided to move it to a ‘more efficient’ hospital.”

“Faculty members … our modern day heroes.”

The doctor smiled. “They do what they can. They’re broke but they do what they can.”

“No wonder they have you working the whole floor. You make corruption sound noble.”

“Word play runs in my family, if that’s a good thing.”

“It can be when the moment is right. Back at the crash you actually managed to make a screaming pregnant woman appear normal to the crowd.”

“You could hear me speak? How close were you?”

“Right next to you. Actually, it was one of my friends who gave you those pills you used to calm the woman down.”

The doctor froze and almost seemed about to drop his clipboard. “Your friend gave me those pills?”

“Yeah, you probably didn’t recognise him. He was with the people visiting me earlier. His name is Henry: short skinny guy with glasses, usually found hiding in the back corner of the room.”

The doctor’s skin paled faster than his humour sank. His body tensed to a steady state of calm which seemed stuck between jumping in panic and succumbing to his knees. “Henry … that was him?”

“Yeah … is there a problem?”

“Those pills … your friend … I have to see him.”

The door swung open in one great push. The doctor sprang to his feet in dreadful anticipation.

Rum entered, strolling vigorously as ever to bedside.

“Relax doc,” Alex said. “Sure he’s ugly but he doesn’t bite.”

“Thought you’d gotten rid of me, didn’t ya?” Rum said, eying up the doctor. “What’s up his ass? Not another nut job doc.”

Alex looked past Rum to Henry, who came slinking in behind. “Hey Henry.”

“H-Hey Alex, when did you wake…” Henry too found his eyes falling up the doctor. “Are … we allowed in here?”

“No use asking these people anything,” Rum said. I think the faculty here just broke out a bunch psychos from an asylum and swapped one white uniform for another. If one doc can get away with acting like a psycho then why not all of them?

“Did Rummy have a bad run in with a member of staff? How surprising.”

“Sure did but this time it ain’t my fault.”

“Sure.”

“It’s true,” Henry said. “Rum was just … well I don’t know what he was doing but the doctor overreacted. He started threatening Rum for no reason.”

“Tip of the day, if you don’t know what Rum did then don’t defend him.”