Crazy Heart

by Thomas Cobb

  “It doesn’t look too bad,” the man says when he comes back to the truck. “Crunched your right fender, busted a headlight. You got a flat tire. Not too bad. And you got about twenty yards of fence, too.” He hands Bad the keys. “I locked it.” He starts the truck.

  Bad hears the crunch of gravel under the tires as the truck noses out onto the road. “Wait,” he says. “Wait. My guitar.”

  When the man comes back with the guitar, Bad remembers. “Fire truck, get the fire truck, too.”

  “Ain’t no fire, buddy. It’s all O.K.”

  He wants to explain about Buddy’s fire truck, to go back and get it, but he feels too tired to speak.

  He rides huddled against the door, shivering, trying not to move. His ankle has begun to throb. The man keeps poking him in the shoulder.

  “You got a bump on your head. You might have a concussion. I don’t think you should sleep. Talk to me. You a musician?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What kind?”

  “Guitar.”

  “I know that. Come on, talk to me. What kind of music do you play?”

  “Country.”

  “Yeah? You know Kenny Rogers? I really like him. You know ‘Lucille’? Come on, sing it with me.”

  “My ankle,” Bad says.

  “‘You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille,’ ” the man croaks. “Come on, ‘With four hungry kids and a crop in the field.’ Come on, you know it.”

  Bad tries to mumble a harmony behind him.

  The hospital is light and full of angles that spin past him. Every time he looks up, lights shine in his eyes. He closes them tight and Tommy is there with golf clubs, asking him if he wants a drink. He reaches for the bottle and Tommy pulls it away and laughs a sharp, brittle laugh. As Tommy laughs, he runs his hands through his hair, drawing his ears out to long red points. He runs a hand across his face and pulls it sharp and covered with red fur. His nose is small and black above the long red whiskers. His tongue lolls over the rows of small white pointed teeth. The yellow eyes shine and dart. His upper lip wrinkles and pulls up away from the little teeth. Tommy darts forward, sinking his teeth into Bad’s ankle. Then he runs, skittering across the tile floor of the hospital and under the root of a tree and gone.

  Chapter Ten

  When he wakes he is in bed, but he is not sure where. The vertical blinds, the bed rails, the curtain, slowly come into focus. He is in the hospital, he knows that. He has had an accident. There is someone in another bed, next to him.

  “Where am I?” he asks.

  “Hospital,” the man answers. “You got a busted ankle. They brought you in late last night. You were gone, man.”

  “Where? Where are we?”

  “Taos. That what you mean? You want a nurse? I can call one for you.”

  Nurses are in and out all morning. He is questioned and poked. He drifts in and out of dreamless sleep, waking to thermometers, needles to the inside of the elbow, and the puffing sleeve of the sphygmomanometer. “Where am I?” he keeps asking them. “The hospital,” they assure him confidently.

  When he remains awake, he checks the damage. There is a bandage on his forehead and a plaster cast on his left ankle, about as long as the shaft of a good boot. His neck, shoulders and back are all sore and tight. He has pain, but more, he has questions: what is wrong with him, where is he, where is his guitar, where is his van, and when can he get out of here?

  “I’ll call the nurse again,” the guy in the next bed says, “if you can stay awake long enough to talk to her.”

  “Call,” he says. His throat is parched and his lips are cracking.

  “Simple fracture of the fibula,” she tells him. “Broken ankle. A minor concussion. You are in the hospital, Taos, New Mexico; your guitar is in the closet with your clothes. About your van, you’ll have to contact the New Mexico Department of Public Safety, and when you can leave is up to the doctor.”

  “Soon?” he asks.

  “Probably.”

  “Today?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Get me the doctor.”

  “If you can make it down the hall, you can call from the pay phone, it’s cheaper,” the guy in the next bed advises.

  Bad considers the white cocoon around his ankle and the pain that seems to squeeze up out of it and spiral up his leg. He calls the DPS from the phone beside the bed.

  After he is forced to spell out his name, his whole name, his legal name, over the phone, he is told his van is at the impound lot in Taos. He needs proof of insurance, and two hundred sixty-eight dollars to cover impound fees and forty yards of wire-mesh fence and six fence posts, plus labor. He is also being cited for Failure to Control Vehicle. He gives them Jack’s phone number.

  The doctor, the nurse tells him, will be in to see him before long. In the meantime, she wants to know what kind of medication he is taking for his blood pressure.

  “None,” he says. “An occasional whiskey. But only once in a while.”

  “Terrific,” she says. “Your blood pressure is one eighty-five over ninety-five.”

  “That’s not good, huh?”

  “That’s not real good.”

  “I could drink a couple more, I guess.”

  The problem, the doctor explains, is not really the ankle. It’s a pretty clean break and should heal without undue complication, though at his age, who really knows? He will have to stay off it for at least six weeks, but he can leave in the morning. The problem, as the doctor sees it, is his general condition, or lack of condition. His blood pressure is way too high, his heart has a fairly pronounced arrhythmia, and there is considerable chest congestion. And from the responses he gave the nurse earlier in the morning, it is clear that his drinking and smoking have slipped to something beyond excess.

  “I was still asleep then,” Bad says. “I didn’t know what I was saying. If I’d been awake, I would have lied. Then we’d both be happier.”

  The doctor is young and sweet-looking. He has short brown hair, a neatly trimmed beard and wire-rim glasses. He wears a western shirt and a bolo tie below the open collar. He wears corduroy jeans, and Bad knows that he wears rounded shoes with crepe soles. He is sincere, and sincerely trying to be kind. But Bad figures that anyone who is willing to stick two fingers up your ass and poke around like that enjoys his work. The pretense of kindness doesn’t go very far.

  The real problem, the doctor tells him, is not that he is going to die. That’s not a problem, that’s a simple fact. The real problem is that he probably is not going to die for quite a while yet. Bad does not consider this a serious problem.

  “Let me explain it to you this way,” the doctor begins. “If it was simply a matter of life expectancy, you might decide that it is worth the gamble. You go on living the way you are, the way you seem to think you want to live, and then in a couple of years, four or five angels lift you up into heaven with a lot of harp music in the background. That would be great. You’ve paid your money, you’ve taken your choice. You’ve traded ten or twenty years of your life for the right to live any damn way you choose. Good enough. The only thing is, it doesn’t work that way. The kinds of stuff we’re talking about here—emphysema, congestive heart failure, cancer, an extremely good chance of stroke—are more debilitating than quickly and cleanly fatal. They will kill you, there’s no mistaking that, but they’re going to do it slowly, painfully, and humiliatingly. You’re going to end up helpless as a child, in all probability.

  “Mr. Blake, are you going to talk to me?”

  “About what?”

  “Look, Mr. Blake, I have other patients to see. Obviously, you don’t want to hear any of this. You’ve got a broken ankle, you want to go home. I understand that. But when I see something like this, I have to say something. You don’t want to hear it, and I don’t particularly want to say it, but I’ve got to. You come in here from an auto accident; after I set your ankle, I find a fifty-six-year-old man who is rapidly starting to wear out. You smoke two packs of
unfiltered cigarettes a day; you are a good thirty pounds overweight; your blood pressure is way too high; you obviously get no exercise; you clearly eat anything at all; and let’s not kid ourselves about this one: you’re an alcoholic.

  “What you want is to get rid of the pain in your ankle and get out of here, then you’ll feel better. But don’t you see you’re not going to feel much better, even without the pain? I’m telling you: stop smoking, stop drinking, lose twenty-five pounds. You do that, you’ll feel better. I can make recommendations for ways to do that. Your own doctor can help you. But that’s what you’ve got to do. It’s your choice, but you don’t have any real options. In the meantime, stay off the leg.”

  “He didn’t give you cholesterol and salt,” the guy in the next bed says. “That comes next. Give up all that, and then it’s cholesterol and salt. It’s always something.”

  “I’d give up cholesterol and salt and kiss his ass for a drink,” Bad says.

  “Bad, where are you?” He tries to gauge the distance in her voice.

  “Taos,” he says.

  “Taos? I waited up most of the night for you. I thought you were going to be here last night.”

  “I’m in the hospital.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “I had an accident. I’m sorry. I broke my ankle. I wasn’t drinking. I just had an accident.”

  “Are you O.K.?”

  “Well, no. I broke my ankle.”

  “Oh jeez, I’m sorry.”

  “No, look. I’m sorry. I was about an hour and a half out of Santa Fe last night and I fell asleep. It was my own damn fault. And it’s not all that bad. I get out of here in the morning.”

  “Are you still going to come here?”

  “If I can. If it’s all right with you.”

  “I’ll come and get you.”

  “I can drive. My van’s O.K. as far as I can tell.”

  “I’ll come and get you. I’ll take the bus in the morning.”

  “You really don’t have to.”

  “I’m coming. I want to.”

  “That’s wonderful.”

  He likes getting pushed down the hall in the wheelchair, his left leg stuck out in front like a cowcatcher. He is still in his gown, but he has his hat, stained at the brim from the spilled Coca-Cola. He nods and smiles to the people he passes. In 1963, he rode in the Rose Bowl Parade, two cars behind the grand marshal. This is oddly similar.

  In the physical therapy room, he is held up by two orderlies, while he is measured and crutches are adjusted for him. The crutches are not as easy as they look. He keeps dropping down and catching his armpits on the braces. He is having trouble getting the rhythm of swinging the heavy cast ahead of him as he goes. He stops and sits on the therapy table. “Shit,” he says. “This would be a hell of a lot easier if I had a drink.”

  “Walk ten times across the room,” the therapist says.

  “Hell, I can’t walk that three times, much less ten.”

  “O.K.,” the therapist says, “we’ll send the chair back. You can walk back to your room with your butt hanging out. One way or another, you’ll learn to use those.”

  Bad slides off the table and starts swinging himself across the room.

  When she arrives, he has been sitting in the wheelchair for an hour and a half, ready to go. He has dressed in the clothes he was wearing when he had the accident. The left leg of his jeans is slit up to the knee. He has his guitar and left boot on his lap.

  “I’ll only stay a day or so, then I’ll head back to Houston,” he tells her in the taxi on the way to the impound yard. “You don’t need some old gimp hanging around being a bother.”

  “Nonsense. You won’t be a bother.”

  “If I’m as good at being laid up as I think I’m going to be, I’ll be a hell of a bother.”

  The van is worse than he has expected. It’s drivable, but the right front fender is smashed and there is a small crack at the lower corner of the windshield. The bumper is twisted on the right, and the grille is pushed in. The headlight is gone, and there are long scratches down both sides, where he has dragged the fence along with him. It looks like three or four hundred dollars’ worth of damage.

  The impound bill has been taken care of out of Jack’s office. He has to sign release forms and a citation for Failure to Control Vehicle. He has a court date in two weeks to answer the charge.

  “Can I just pay this?” he asks.

  “Call the district court,” the trooper tells him. “They’ll take a plea over the phone and assess the fine. You better get that headlight fixed right away. The second you are off this lot, you are in violation. You could pick up another citation for Faulty Equipment.”

  “Jesus, Lord. You aren’t going to pull that kind of shit on me, are you?”

  “I’m here at this desk. I’m not going to cite anyone. I can’t speak for anyone else, though. I’d get it fixed right away.”

  “Yeah. Damn. I’ll get right to it.” He swings away from the desk on his crutches, holding himself stiff with his forearms, careful of his already tender armpits. “I got a flat tire there. Anyone here to change it for me?”

  “I’m sorry, sir, we’re not staffed to take care of those items.”

  “I’ll pay.”

  “Sorry, sir. No can do.”

  “I’ll do it,” Jean says. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Mr. Blake,” the trooper calls, “it was nice to meet you. I’ve always liked your songs.”

  “Khaki bastard,” he says to Jean when they are out the door.

  “That was sort of nice. I mean, to say he likes your songs.”

  “My ex-wives all liked my songs, too. They tried to cut my heart out. There isn’t anything as treacherous as a fan.”

  Jean jacks up the van and pulls the bad tire and wheel with little difficulty. Bad hobbles around her, looking for something to do. He keeps fluttering his hands and saying, “Hell, you shouldn’t be doing this.” She gets the spare, mounts it and runs the lug nuts tight.

  “Is there anything you need?” she asks as she wheels the van into the street. “Did you have breakfast?”

  “Yeah. I had something in the hospital.”

  “What did you have?”

  “Food. That was as close as I could identify it. What time is it?”

  “Quarter after eleven.”

  “Could we stop for a drink?”

  “Isn’t it a little early for that?”

  “Depends on how you look at it. To me, it looks like about two days late.”

  “Can’t you wait until we get to Santa Fe?”

  He is trying to light a cigarette, his hand shaking so hard he has to brace it with the other. “I don’t think so.”

  He is flat on his back in Jean’s bed. His foot is propped up on two cushions from the sofa in the living room. Both of the pillows from the bed are behind his head. On the table beside him are his cigarettes and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. At the foot of the bed is the television, wheeled in from the living room. On the television, lives tangle and knot into ruin. He can hear Jean moving through the other rooms.

  On the television, two women talk. One fights back tears. The other keeps talking, hesitates, then turns and leaves. In the hall, beyond the door, she stops. “She needs someone to talk to,” she says to no one Bad can see. She moves back to the door. Talk, Bad thinks, is not what she needs. She’s going to need someone to walk to. He repeats that. Then he throws back the covers and slips out of bed. He hops to the other side of the room, where his guitar is propped against the chair.

  It comes as easily to him as an old song recalled after years, in E flat: “She’s going to need someone to walk to, / When she walks out on you. / She’s going to need someone to talk to, / When she finally says she’s through.” It slips like grease on a skillet from E flat to A flat, back to E flat and up to B flat.

  He calls Jean in and sings it for her. “She’s going to need someone to walk to, / And it’s going to be me instead of you
.”

  “You know that song?” he asks.

  “I think so,” she says. “I’m sure I’ve heard it.”

  “Yeah,” he says, “that’s the way it is. The good ones are the ones you’re sure you’ve heard before. That’s the next hit for Tommy Sweet.”

  “You wrote that?”

  “Just now. Just fifteen minutes ago. I’m afraid that’s going to be about all I’m going to be good for for a little while here.”

  “No,” she says, slipping back the covers. “That’s not why you’re here.”

  “So how the hell did this happen?” Jack asks.

  “I fell asleep. I’d been driving for fifteen hours.”

  “Drinking?”

  “No. Goddamn it, no. I fell asleep.”

  “O.K., O.K. What are you doing in Santa Fe?”

  “Visiting a friend.”

  “Friend?”

  “A friend. People who aren’t so goddamned suspicious have them.”

  “You have any idea how much your marriages have cost you over the years? You’ve spent more on alimony than some folks make in their whole lives.”

  “I ain’t marrying anybody. I’m visiting my friend.”

  “When are you going to be back in Houston?”

  “In a couple of days. Terry is auditioning new bass players. I’ll be back in time to get started. It wouldn’t go any faster with me there.”

  “O.K. Have Brenda give you the insurance policy number. Call the office and get them working on getting the van fixed. Can you drive?”

  “Yeah. I can drive. I will drive. I’ll be there by the first of the week.”

  “Take care of yourself, Bad.”

  “I wasn’t drinking.”

  Jean comes into the room with two cups of coffee. “You want me to call him?”

  “Why?”

  “To tell him that I’m not about to marry you.”

  “You might have waited until I asked before you turned me down.”

  “Oh God, don’t even joke.”

  “I’m not all that bad. They weren’t all my fault. I think it was Kay Starr said, on the occasion of her fifth or sixth divorce, ‘I guess it can’t always be the guy’s fault.’ I’ve taken a lot of comfort from that.”