by Desmond Hall
Frankie shifted uneasily. Checking in once or twice a week was no big deal, but he couldn’t see coming full-time until his father was back on his feet. How long would that take? They wouldn’t even let him see his father yet. “Thanks, miss. For everything.”
“Now, have you told anyone?”
“Ah, the people back in Troy know.”
“Anyone here?”
“No. I came to see you first thing.”
“Frankie, it might be best… if no one at school knows that your father was shot.”
He wondered where she was going. “Okayyyyyy.”
“Confidentiality might serve you better.” She cleared her throat. “If anyone asks why you’re not in school regularly, maybe just tell them you have an illness in the family. Does that work for you?”
Actually, it made sense. If somebody, some idiot classmate, made some bad joke about his father getting shot, he might go off, he was so pissed. “Yes, that works.”
She intertwined her fingers. “Good. I wish your father Godspeed.”
* * *
So caught up in his thoughts, Frankie nearly walked right into another student as he left the office. He moved left—she moved in the same direction and they nearly crashed again. Frankie looked up just as the girl did. She. Her. Leah. The same girl he was thinking about before Joe’s party went sideways. She laughed, then said, “Frankie. Hey, stranger.” He was an instant mess—part happy to see her, part nervous to see his dad.
Leah was a senior too. Her groove was art. She wore her green school tie lower than any other student he’d seen—the knot halfway to her belt. With one quick move, she could shake it loose—defiance of school policy that she wore real well. Teachers must have said something, but knowing Leah, she probably talked her way out of it. Last year he thought he and she were about to start something. Then all of a sudden she got all spooked, started to avoid him.
“How’re you doing?” Her smile—perfect—two dimples.
Talk about a loaded question! He quickly sidestepped it, saying, “All right. You?”
She eyed him up and down. “Excuse me for saying this, but you don’t really look all right.”
He half shrugged, suddenly having the urge to unload—part of why he’d been so surprised when she up and disappeared on him was that they’d seemed to be able to talk to each other so easily. But, Dad. He had to go. “Yeah, well, I can’t really talk right now.” That came out totally wrong. Moron!
“Okayyyyy.” She smiled strangely, like she was smiling reassurance. “I get it… I wasn’t very cool about things the last time we… I was shitty, right?”
This was an apology he’d never heard before. I was shitty. It was so in-your-face. “Yeah, I guess.” He wanted to just say it was cool, and be cool, but damn, he needed to go.
“Just yeah?” Her smile widened, even as she said, “You have every right to be mad.”
“I don’t need your permission to be mad.” Permission. He hated that word. Permission to go to the party. Permission not to go to school with a sick father. Permission to be mad. Enough! “We had something going. And you just stopped. So yeah, it was shitty.”
“Like I said.” She was still smiling.
“What is this? I mean, why are you here stepping to me now, anyway?”
“I thought we could talk… but you don’t seem like you’re in the mood.”
“No… now’s not good—” He was an idiot.
She lifted her head high. “Later, then.” Then she was gone.
The school crest on the wall—the words YET HIGHER—seemed to mock him, like how much lower could he go.
* * *
Two excruciating days later, Frankie sat in the outdoor waiting area of the hospital. He’d been back and forth a half dozen times now, sitting in almost the same spot, hearing the same news, that his father was still in intensive care and couldn’t be seen. He tapped his feet against the ground, feeling mad with worry. At least Samson was alive, right? At least that. And at least this time, Uncle Joe and Aunt Jenny came with him. They knew how to get answers. They knew the game.
Flanked by a frail older man’s bony shoulder on one side, and the hefty, sweaty arm of a young woman on the other, Frankie peered up at the five-story building, a big off-white concrete slab that he couldn’t stop thinking of as an unfinished headstone. The sun pounded down; convective heat bore into his skin. Whoever had built the hospital hadn’t considered the sun’s path, but they could have, should have. There was plenty of room to orient the area to diminish the effects of the heat. He started making mental calculations, envisioning ways to correct the problem, to keep himself from thoughts of Samson, as oppressive as the heat.
Uncle Joe never seemed to break a sweat—what was up with that? He was pacing back and forth, growling into his cell phone, his free hand swinging like a hammer.
“Listen to me, Buck-Buck, me don’t care about that. Me want everybody who did come to my party to get a bag of grocery, with meat, not only the people that got shot. Everybody.”
Joe’s smooth Rastafarian delivery had been replaced by a militaristic staccato, a captain on the battlefield.
“Flowers? No, mon, I tell you, me want them to get food and things they can use.” He clutched his forehead like he had a headache. “The people need to know me is there for them. Is two innocents dead, a dozen hurt, you know, mon?”
Frankie rubbed away the ash that clung to his knuckles. He’d forgotten to wash up this morning and now couldn’t remember if he had done so the day before, either. Mr. Brown had commented on his dirty hands once—said Frankie had to think like a businessman, consider how the customers would feel buying food from someone with dirty hands. Mr. Brown had been all buttoned up, even about selling yams, when he was making a hundred times more selling ganja. He was old-school, and Frankie missed him. And then there were the other people: Mrs. Jenkins’s grown boy who’d also killed, Winston’s friend who’d taken a bullet to the calf, and the guy who grabbed that little kid—he just got released from the hospital today.
Frankie suddenly wanted to slam his fist into the faces of the men who had shot up Joe’s party. But they were dead. He smacked his thigh instead, nearly dropping the bag he was holding.
Joe tucked away his cell phone. “Jenny still talking to the nurse?”
Frankie shrugged. All he knew was that Jenny was inside, dealing with paperwork that had to be cleared before they’d be allowed to visit his father. Every night he replayed the moments before the shooting, the moment of. He couldn’t stop picturing his father lying in the dirt—lying on his back—so clearly coming toward Frankie when he’d been gunned down. Not running away. Running toward. These thoughts pinched Frankie’s chest, and he fought to push them away. Also pinching his chest was the possibility that a fight could well occur between his father and uncle once they were let up to see him. Joe was simply here to pay his respects. But his father—Frankie knew—he’d blame Joe, blame him for what happened…. It was so stupid. Family was family!
At last the hospital doors slid open, and Jenny emerged, beaming, alongside a nurse who carried herself with precision, her all-white uniform pristine. Success!
* * *
The cool air felt like the first splash in a river. Air-conditioning! At least Samson had air-conditioning. Frankie wondered for a split second what hospitals in the US were like. Were you allowed in without being asked a thousand questions, or having to fill out a half-dozen forms? Up ahead, a man in a wheelchair sat facing the wall. From behind he looked like Samson, Frankie thought, then crashed right into a garbage can. Down fell his bag. Bandages—three different sizes—and three cans of ginger beer hit the tile. Frankie squatted just as the nurse did, his head barely missing hers.
“You okay?” Her voice was soft, calming.
“Sorry. I just thought that man over there was my father.”
She nodded, noting a set of white sheets that hadn’t quite fallen out of the bag, the ones Aunt Jenny had told Frankie t
o bring. “It’s good that you brought all this. The hospital is really in a crunch right now.” The nurse smiled as she stood. “It’s a nice thing that you’re doing,” she added. Jenny had been right—sheets earned nurse points!
But Joe stepped forward, forhead furrowed with impatience. “We need to talk about my brother.”
A flicker of fear crossed the nurse’s face. Then it was gone, and she once again was in control. “Yes, well, as I told your sister, the surgeon removed the bullet from his chest, but there were some complications. At first we thought he’d contracted a gram negative infection, but it seems to be a staph infection called MRSA—”
“Come now, nurse, chat English,” Joe interrupted.
“Well… the bullet wound is infected, badly. And the antibiotics we have aren’t strong enough to treat it—”
Joe slapped the wall. “With so much gunshot in Jamaica, how you no have proper medicine?”
His uncle was just upset. Frankie knew how third-world Jamaica was in so many technological ways. There just wasn’t enough money to get things done. Farmers couldn’t even irrigate crops on slopes until Israel gave them the right products.
Aunt Jenny laid a hand on Joe’s shoulder as if gentling a big cat. “Nurse, how bad is this infection you’re talking about?” she asked soothingly.
The nurse’s eyes grew softer. “Well, to keep it simple, we give patients like your brother antibiotics right after surgery, but unfortunately, staph infectionsare a whole different story, and are on the rise here. We need a stronger course of treatment.”
Frankie frowned, wondered why the infections were on the rise here. There were too many stories about mistakes made in Jamaican hospitals, like nurses injecting patients with the wrong medicine and killing them. Though they might be exaggerations, there was a reason for the saying, “If it doesn’t go so, it go close to so.” And then the thought occurred to him.
“Is the treatment expensive?” he asked warily.
“Yes, that’s what I wanted to talk to you all about.” The nurse tugged the hem of her uniform, straightening it out. “I do have to warn you this is going to be quite costly.”
“Here it comes.” Joe folded his arms, the sleeves of his T-shirt tight with muscle. “The big rip-off. Everything in Jamaica is costly.”
Frankie’s heart felt like it was ballooning against his breastbone. The nurse had said costly. What did costly mean? He repeated his aunt’s question. “How bad is the infection?”
The nurse’s eyes went soft again. “Let’s just say he needs the treatment to survive.”
Frankie’s chest grew tighter. His father didn’t have a job, never mind savings. “How much is the treatment?” he asked flat out.
“I don’t have an exact amount—there would be some savings if a generic version is available, but we need a drug called Linezolid, and since it’s relatively new, it’s very costly.”
“Can you give an estimate, though?” Frankie urged.
The nurse gripped her left forearm. “First, let me say the Linezolid should work, but I have to be honest—he may need other medicines. Antimicrobial resistance has become a real problem.”
“Anti—what?” Joe flipped his wrist as if shaking dice in a can.
Frankie turned to his uncle but kept an eye on the nurse to make sure he was saying the right thing. “Means antibiotics aren’t working like they used to.”
The nurse nodded, looking impressed. “Exactly. And given the severity of the infection, your father should get a twenty-seven-day course.”
“How much are we talking about, money-wise?” Joe demanded.
The nurse looked uneasily at Joe. “Figure it will be in the fifteen-thousand-dollar range before it’s all said and done. We don’t have the meds here, so we’ll have to send for it from the US.”
Fifteen thousand? That was pretty cheap. Then Frankie blanched. Oh no! If it was coming from the US, she might have meant the US dollar, not the Jamaican dollar, which was worth a lot less. Frankie could feel the blood pumping in the veins of his neck. Shit, shit, shit, shit. “That JA or US, miss?” he forced himself to ask. Oh please, oh please, say JA.
Another glance at Joe, and then she told him, “Oh, that’s US. Like I said, we don’t have those antibiotics here at the moment.”
Frankie had stopped listening after she said US, feeling limp as a willow branch. He could have been blown over by a breeze.
“Lawd God, that’s a whole heap of money!” Jenny exclaimed, turning to Joe. “That’s… that’s… more than two million JA!”
Joe gathered his dreads, pulled them back. “Don’t look at me.”
But Frankie did—he looked from his uncle to his aunt to his uncle again. Jenny was glaring at Joe. Joe had the cash, but Frankie already knew he wasn’t going to part with it—not for Samson. “Why so much?” Frankie asked the nurse.
“It’s not just the Linezolid, it’s ongoing daily blood tests, IVs, the cost of being in the hospital, fees, and so much more, to be quite honest.” The nurse bit at her lower lip. “I want to be clear about this: we don’t have much time here.”
Frankie fought to keep his voice steady. “How long do we have?”
“The next twenty-four hours—”
“Yes, yes,” Joe interrupted. “It’s done. Order the medicine.”
His uncle was actually offering to pay? Frankie fought the urge to shout for joy. But he didn’t. That would piss off Joe big-time.
The nurse clasped her hands. Frankie couldn’t help wonder what it felt like, having to give that kind of news, especially to people who couldn’t pay. “Okay then, I’ll let the doctor know. And you may go up to the third floor and see him for a few minutes. Come with me.”
Inside the double-wide elevator, his aunt and uncle stared forward at the doors, neither saying a word. But Frankie felt all kinds of jittery. He pressed the button about eleven times. He longed to see his father—he was scared to see his father.
The elevator abruptly jerked twice, as if it was about to fall back to the bottom; Frankie planted a hand against the wall for balance. It jerked one more time, and then the doors parted. The smell of stale urine mixed with a pungent ammonia that slapped Frankie square. He needed to hack and spit, but where? The nurse led them through a large open room, navigating the checkerboard of beds until she stopped at one, several feet from the others. Frankie gulped. His father. He was so pale. Beneath the threadbare white sheet that cloaked him, a tube emptied into a bag the size of a water bottle clipped to the side of the bed rail, the fluid inside dark amber. Samson’s veined hands were folded over his stomach.
“Daddy.”
Samson jerked his head in Frankie’s direction, then extended his hand. “Frankie.”
Frankie took it eagerly, blinking hard as he felt the lack of heft, the infirmity of the grip. When he let go, Jenny brushed by him and ran her hand along the side of Samson’s cheek. “Me never been so happy to see your big old ugly face,” she said, pulling her hand away at last.
Samson gave a half smile.
Joe kept his distance but called out, “What you saying, Samson?”
His father nodded at Joe, but there was an instant of coldness in his eyes. The same look that’d been on his face when he had come toward Frankie at the party. He’d felt shame when his father showed up at the party—now he really felt ashamed. And he still needed to spit. He cleared his throat and remembered what he’d brought—seeing his favorite drink would make Samson smile! He dug inside the bag, found a can of ginger beer, and held it up. Excited now, Frankie grabbed a bag of water crackers and a star apple and held those up too.
Samson let out a short grunt. “That must cost a whole heap of money. Me must be in bad shape?”
Jenny flicked a hand as if the comment were a fly to shoo away. “You going to come back strong.” She was shifting from leg to leg, as if a slow song were playing and only she heard it.
“How you feeling, Dad?” Frankie asked.
“Not the worst I ev
er felt,” he answered. Frankie knew exactly what he meant: nothing compared to losing Ma.
Joe stepped forward at last. “Them tell you about your condition?”
They stared each other down as if they were in elementary school, waiting to see who would blink first.
“Them say a whole lot of t’ing,” Samson said at last. “Is morning, noon, and night them come around and chat this and that. Draw blood, pills, all kind of t’ings.”
Frankie leaned against the bed rail—it was cold. Was his dad cold? “The nurse told us you have an infection, and you need a special treatment. Antibiotics.”
Joe raised an eyebrow. “Expensive, antibiotics. How you going to pay for them?”
What?! But—but Joe had just… Joe had said… what the hell? Frankie looked to Jenny. She rolled her eyes. Then he got it—Joe was messing with older brother.
Samson shook his head. “Me don’t need no treatment.”
Jenny took Samson’s hand, rubbed it. “How you going to get better, then?”
“Me will be fine.” Samson pulled his hand away. “Me don’t need them medicine.”
Frankie glanced at his aunt worriedly. “But the nurse says… she says it’s critical.”
“Yes, she did, Samson.” Jenny’s voice went young, maybe from when they were little.
“You wouldn’t need it if you was quicker on your feet,” Joe said, shifting his shoulders like a boxer. “You coulda dodged them shots.”
“Oh, it’s my fault?” Samson struggled to lift his head. “Yes, thank you for the bullet. It was a nice party prize me get.”
Jenny cocked her head. “Samson—come on—Joe didn’t—” Joe slapped his hand flat against his own chest, interrupting. “You’re blaming me?”
Straining, Samson at last raised his head off the pillow. “Is you them come for, not me.”
Joe nodded quick quick, but not in agreement, his dreads vibrating like strings on an instrument. Frankie turned to his father. “Dad, Uncle Joe never wanted this for you!”
