Five

Dan

Of course folks at the hospital weren’t too keen on the idea of me and Billy paying Bridget a visit.

“Sir, we can only allow family visitors in the patients’ rooms,” said one of the emergency room nurses, stretching out the word “family” like it was a curse word she’d just learned.

She sat behind that big white front desk they all got, feeling all big because she was perched on the other side of the sliding window, but to me she looked no better than one of them slobs that hands you your fries at a Burger King drive through. So I made my play strong. Told her I was Bridget’s lawyer. Needed to consult with the victim on legal matters. When she went off to find the head nurse, me and Billy snuck though the door to the patients’ room by helping some pimply-faced candy striper push a cart of Jell-O and milk that was nearly as tall as her.

After peeping through three windows, I found Bridget’s room. It was a small hospital. She was sitting straight up in bed eating fruit salad. They’d taped a thick white piece of gauze to the side of her neck, but other than that, there was nothing to show that she'd just taken some lead. As it was it looked more like she'd been stung by a bee than shot. To her left there was a curtain separating her from the other patient who shared the room--some old hag dying a slow death of something.

I had my hand on the door and was ready to go in there to see if I could get the skinny on her injuries, when I heard them coming down the hallway. The doc and some clown revved up enough to be Bridget’s husband or boyfriend.

“How can you do surgery if you can’t even find the bullet?” said the revved up husband or boyfriend.

They were too tied up with own Ps and Qs to notice me and Billy, but I saw they were headed straight to our door, so I yanked Billy back a few steps so we could look like we were waiting outside one of the other rooms.

“The surgery will be exploratory in nature,” said the doc. “Of course we’ll need to find the bullet before we remove it.”

“It doesn’t make any sense. How can you not know where the bullet is? What the hell does that mean?”

“I’m afraid it’s as simple as it sounds. There’s no visible exit wound, yet our x-rays turned up nothing.”

“And the damage?” The husband or boyfriend stopped a few feet from Bridget’s door, glanced at Billy and me, and then lowered his voice. “What’s the extent of the physical damage?

They both turned their backs on us to try and keep their talk to themselves. I stepped a few paces closer, staring up at the ceiling like I wasn’t listening.

“It looks like your wife was very lucky,” The doc answered. “As far as we can tell there was no damage to the spinal column and the shot completely missed any major arteries. Other than the surface wound, it looks like there was no damage at all--no internal bleeding, very little tissue damage, but it’s imperative that we do the exploratory surgery to remove that bullet.”

“The bullet you can’t see?”

“Often these things are more complex than they at first seem,” the doc explained. “We have the best tools at our disposal, but the human body still holds a great deal of mystery.”

“Please, spare me the lecture--”

Before the husband or boyfriend could finish his bitching, a scream from inside the room spun all our heads to the door. They both sprinted into the room, ignoring me. I wanted to go in to see what she was screaming about, but I thought it was best to keep my distance—-until I looked down and saw that Billy was gone.

Inside, the room was busy as a greased pig contest in a phone booth. Bridget screamed, shouted, and pointed; the doc held her by the shoulders, talking at her to lie back in the bed; the husband or boyfriend cussed and threw his arms all around; and the old bird on the other side of the curtain banged on her bedside tray table telling them all to shut up.

Standing in the middle, of course, still as a statue at the foot of the bed was the root of Bridget’s freak out—-Billy. Apparently he’d wandered into the room while I was busy trying to look like I wasn’t listening to the doc and the husband or boyfriend, and they were busy trying to look like they weren’t arguing. Now, he was just looking back at Bridget as she pointed and screamed at him. Just standing there tilting his head to the side looking at her like she was a big word he was trying to read.

“Didn’t want to take no nap,” he said.

“It’s him,” she yelped. “The boy that shot me! I never asked you to take a nap! Why is he here!? Why is he here!?”

Meanwhile the doc told her to calm down, the husband or boyfriend asked what in the hell kind of crackerjack hospital this was, and the old bird banged on the table. After a few minutes though, the doc got them all calmed down, and all eyes turned to Billy and me.

“Excuse me, but visiting hours are over, and only family are allowed in patients' rooms,” the doc said. “Can I ask what you’re doing in here?”

“Well,” I stammered. “Thing is . . .”

Luckily, I didn’t have to finish trying to think up some bunk to throw his way, cause Bridget, who’d been wheezing hoarsely since the doc had calmed her, suddenly started coughing louder than a cat with lung cancer gagging on a hair-ball.

Everybody looked back at her.

Her face went from red to purple as she hacked so hard her eyes bulged. The doc reached toward her shoulder to steady her, but then, as Bridget cupped both hands over her face, a sound came from her throat that was something between the popping of a cork and a dry heave.

Instantly the coughing stopped, and Bridget slowly lowered her hands from her face. We all stood so still you could have heard a pin so much as think about dropping. Everybody just sliding their eyes back and forth to look at each other, as Bridget’s hands neared her lap revealing what she’d just hacked up.

I can’t speak for the others, but half of me knew what it was, and the other half needed to see it. Bridget’s eyes widened as she figured out what it was. The doc stepped back and tilted his head. The husband or boyfriend leaned forward and gasped. The old hag pulled at the curtain.

There in the center of Bridget's hands sat a small puddle of spit, a glob of snot, and a dull gray 32 caliber bullet.

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