Billy Povich: Loot The Moon Part 2

The old man squinted, as if into a bright light. His heavy black-framed eyegla.s.ses magnified the disgust in his eyes. "Say who?" His bottom lip puffed out. "I wanted a relationship movie, like from the olden days."

"And thats exactly what this is. Its about the relationship between a boy and his mom and the robot sent backward in time to kill them." Billy frowned at the disc. "But I think this is the Spanish version."

"I dont know Spanish!" the old man cried.

"Okay-the dialogue is English," Billy said. "Only the subt.i.tles are Spanish."

"I said I dont know Spanish!"

Bo chugged Sprite and then pulled the can away with an exaggerated, Ahhhh! "Lets watch the robot movie!" The boy had not been allowed to see sci-fi when his mother was alive; now he wanted to watch nothing else. For an instant Billy tried to recall the moment when his eight-year-old had graduated from love of dinosaurs to this obsession with robots and Albert Einstein, the worlds greatest scientist; it seemed like some kind of boyhood milestone. Soldiers would be next, probably. G.I. Joe with the kung fu grip. Then the kid would fall for Marcia Brady.

"Any soft core?" the old man deadpanned.

"I got these at the library, Pa."

"Thats why I asked for soft." He dropped his head back and sighed hard at the ceiling, his thoughts someplace else.

"I also got The Third Man, an Orson Welles movie. Hes from your era, Pa. Its about a guy who might be dead, might be alive. Seen it?"

The old mans blue eyes, the part of him that seemed the most alive, shot for a moment to the boy, then back to Billy. "Im in that movie right now, Billy," he said. "Im like the star, but I dont like the script." He grinned. Old age had inserted stripes of darkness between his teeth and turned a once perfect smile into a mockery of itself.

He wants to quit. He wants to die.

A bulge of fear squeezed down Billys throat. He casually pinched his Adams apple.

Bo held the soda can to his lips but did not drink. He watched them. It seemed the boy had caught the scent of some grown-up thoughts pa.s.sing overhead.

Billy wanted to protect the boy. He would speak in code. Holding up the two movies but staring at his father, Billy said, "You have a decision to make. Not one you ought to make on impulse, or when youre feeling low. We should talk it out."

"Albert and I say the robot movie," Bo offered tentatively. He rubbed a hand through the jungle of golden cowlicks on his head, and then brushed Einsteins hair with a finger.

"Will you support what I choose?" the old man said. He glanced to Bo with a pained look-the old man wanted to protect the kid, too. "Or will you force me to ... ah, ah ... watch the movie that you want me to watch?"

Billy licked his dry lips. "This isnt something I can force, Pa."

"You can." The old man tilted his head slightly, almost imperceptibly, toward Bo. "By guilt and by pity."

They stared at each other.

The old mans right, Billy thought. He could force his father to stay on dialysis by using the old mans grandson against him. Just tell Bo: Grandpa will die without his treatment. The old man would suffer anything to stop the childs tears. By guilt and by pity, Billy could force his father to live.

"I can count to eight in Spanish," Bo said. He no longer sounded tentative. The adult conversation had grown too abstract for him, and he had given up on learning its meaning.

Billy glanced from his father to his son, noticing how alike they looked. Mostly in the striking blue eyes, serious and sad and with a mythical quality, like the eyes of a wizened old leprechaun.

"Okay, Bo, its the robot movie." Billy poked the b.u.t.tons of the DVD machine, slid the disc inside, and started the film on the twelve-inch screen.

The subt.i.tle said: Terminator 2: Da del Juicio.

"I cant read Spanish!" the old man cried.

"Dont read it," Billy said. "Just listen to the dialogue in English."

"But the words will keep popping up when somebody says something! How do I not read them?"

"You cant read Spanish," Billy reminded him.

There was no answer to that. The old man wrinkled his brow and shoved his thick-framed gla.s.ses higher up his nose. The corners of his mouth drooped in defeat.

"I gotta run an errand on the other side of the building," Billy said. "You two keep an eye on each other, okay?"

The old man gathered himself and huffed. Billy expected a wisecrack. But William R. Povich Sr. just said in a hollow voice, "Im tired, Billy."

"He hardly looks like our son," the woman said in a gasp. Her shoulders heaved and she cried into her hands, outside a hospital room. Billy looked her up and down. He noticed the cheap tin cross around her neck, her unpainted fingernails, the frayed laces of her white tennis shoes. She did not notice Billy, who was in plain sight but in something of a disguise. "Will he ever see again?" the woman cried. "Oh, goodness, Michael, will he ever walk?"

"Easy now," the man told her gently. "We cant ever let him see us this way. We need to keep his att.i.tude positive. Dont scare him." The elevator b.u.t.ton was already lit, but he jammed his thumb violently against it, as if to show the machine how urgently they needed to leave the trauma wing.

"He barely knew who we are," she said.

The man took her in his arms. "Hes drugged," he told her, "for the pain." His voice was matter-of-fact, but Billy saw him press his eye to her shoulder for an instant, to crush his tear into her cotton shirt. "Well know more when the swelling goes down, but the X-rays told them a lot, and they wouldnt have moved him from intensive care if he were in danger of ..." He paused a moment to edit a grave thought, then said: "If he were in danger."

They were in their late forties, Billy guessed, judging by the lines in her face and the gray whiskers on his, though they could have been younger people who had not slept well in a long time. The elevator yawned open, then gobbled them up after they stepped inside. Their desperation for their son to survive clashed in Billys mind with his old mans desire to die. He pushed the thoughts from his head and slipped into the room the couple had exited. The name on the door tag said: Tracy, Stuart M.

The room was dark but for a bleak white light, above a lump on the bed.

Jesus Christ, look at him!

four.

Before he heard the door click shut, Stu had sensed he was not alone. He marveled at how quickly his other senses had sharpened to compensate for what he could not see. Just one week since the crash, five days since Stu had woken up. Could his senses have grown more acute so quickly? The ability of my other senses must have always been there, he thought. I just didnt notice them. Perhaps the subtler signals from his ears and his skin had for decades been squeezed to the edge of his bandwidth by the flood of information from the eyes. But now, as he lay blind, the weaker signals had a clear path to the processor. In his time of need, his ears and his skin were doggedly serving him, despite all those years he had failed to appreciate them. Such loyalty! He felt a warm column of pride in his chest for body parts that were so faithful.

Wow, I am so stoned!

"Mom? That you? Pop?" Stus mouth would open just half an inch and made him sound like he was a hundred years old.

"Excuse me, Stu ... uh," said a voice from the other side of the bandage over Stus face.

"You a doctor?"

"No, no. Im-are you okay to talk?"

"It only hurts when I exist." Stu smiled at his best line. That joke had cracked up the nurse with the cool, dry hands-Angela-the second-shift angel who smelled of Calvin Kleins Obsession. Mmmmm. Stu slid out of the moment, and smiled at the recollection of her scent ... that time she had leaned over him. She must rub the perfume on her neck ... .

"Stu? Stu?" The voice rang with agitation. Or was it worry?

"Sorry," Stu said, not really sorry at all. "I drifted."

"Not a problem, I understand," said the voice; it was a mans voice, low and a little nasally. A pleasant voice-clean, with no scratchiness or crackling. Stu had auditioned dozens of men for his band and could identify a great singer by the way he said h.e.l.lo. This voice speaking to him couldnt sing "Yankee Doodle." But this was a voice for fine speechmaking. The words came at Stu from a low angle, just above the bed. Was this man four feet tall?

"My name is Povich," the man said. "And I am, well, I guess Im an investigator, for lack of a better term, working for the lawyer that represents Judge Harmonys estate, and I want to ask you a few questions."

A barrage of yellow fireworks exploded on the inside of Stus eyelids. "They told me this was a private floor," Stu said. "Only family is allowed in here." His fingers felt for the call b.u.t.ton that would bring the nurse.

The man who called himself Povich paused for a second. Stu heard his shirt ruffle and the cartilage click in his shoulders. Amazing. I can hear a shrug!

Povich said, "Sure the rooms private, it just aint impenetrable."

"You snuck here? How?"

"Im using my old mans wheelchair right now. He had a stroke some years ago, and doesnt walk more than a few steps at a time. Hes downstairs getting dialysis, so I borrowed his ride. Comfortable. Low miles. Handles like a dream. And I borrowed a white smock from the laundry room." He made a long sniffing noise. "Smells unwashed, so I hope whoever wore this last was here for something like a broken ankle, not the Ebola virus."

Stu laughed. He felt a stabbing in his ribs. He groaned, stiffened against the pain until it pa.s.sed, and then chuckled. Not so bad. The laugh was worth it.

"Youre an honest dude, Povich," Stu said.

"Its Billy."

"I think youre the first honest person thats come see me, Billy."

What had been worrying Stu was not the pain that raked him from the inside, like a trapped animal trying to bite its way out; it was the awkward distance he sensed from his parents and the hospital staff-an odd formality, as if n.o.body dared get too close, because Stu might not be here much longer. He sensed it in the pauses between his questions and his parents answers. When he asked about his prognosis, he got encouragement in response. When he demanded answers, they gave him drugs. He could not see his parents exchanging glances but he could feel it. Their secrecy terrified him. What is wrong with me?

Stu said, "I know Ive been hurt bad, but n.o.body will tell me how bad."

Povich paused a moment. "They dont want to worry you."

"Everybody says Im gonna be fine, and they cant wait for when I get home and we play touch football in the snow this Thanksgiving, and all this happy horses.h.i.t. n.o.body will tell me the truth."

He heard Povich smack his lips, then a light sc.r.a.pe as Povich pa.s.sed a hand over the stubble on his chin. So hes unshaven but doesnt wear a full beard. Stu tried to picture him, but his imagination produced only a silhouette.

"What do you look like, Billy?" Stu asked.

"Huh? Me?"

"I can sorta tell when the lights are on or off in the room, but thats all I can see at the moment. My world is opaque, dirt-colored. Ive been burned, battered. I hope to recover my sight, but who knows? How will my eyes work once the swelling goes down? For now, I have nothing to see but my imagination. Tell me-what do you look like?"

"Like a bodybuilding anchorman," Povich said, "but with a better tan." He chuckled. Stu grinned, as wide as his swollen lips would stretch. Povich confessed: "Actually, Im a tall, skinny Polack, with a face full of triangles-nose, chin, the hairline around my cowlick." He laughed. "My teeth are real straight-too straight, maybe-because they arent real."

"What happened to the real ones?"

"Punched down one storm drain or another, a tooth or two at a time, by the impatient men who collect overdue bills in this town."

"So you know hospitals."

"I got a b.u.mp on the bridge of my nose, right where it always breaks-theres another triangle for you, though more like a pyramid with round edges."

Stu moaned happily. He could see him, floating in front of Stu like a character projected onto a dark screen. There was no wheelchair in the image. As Stu stared at the man his imagination helped create, Povichs head sprouted a tall, pointed magicians hat, blue and covered with yellow stars. "Man, I dont like being so wasted," Stu said, more to himself than to Povich.

"Its for the pain," Povich said. "You must have a lot of it."

"Billy, you have to help me. Tell me, how do I look?"

A pause. "Well, s.h.i.tty."

Stu laughed until the pain shocked him like two hundred volts, seizing his body for a few seconds of torture, and then dropping him limp. Okay, that time the laugh wasnt quite worth it.

"Your face is bandaged with white gauze, stained pink a couple places," Povich said. "The skin that I can see is swollen, raked with scabs and scratches. Your arm is hooked to an IV hanging on a silver hook. Its dripping a liquid the color of chamomile tea into you."

"Is that decaf?"

"Probably would be, if it was actually tea. Jeez, you are wasted." Povich chuckled. "Both your legs are encased in soft casts; the left cast is more complicated and rugged than the right. Makes sense-the police report Ive read said you nearly lost your left leg. It broke a couple places, apparently, when you got thrown from the wreck."

Povich paused, breathed deep, and Stu thought he could also hear the wet click of his eyeb.a.l.l.s turning in their sockets, but that had to be the drugs. Povich said, "Theres a sheet over your midsection that I dont dare lift, with some tubes coming out from under there. And theres, ah-hmm, a bag of urine hanging from under the bed."

"Got it," Stu interrupted. He couldnt believe n.o.body had told him hed nearly lost a leg.

"I know you had internal injuries, spent nearly a week in critical," Billy continued. "I heard youre going to need a few more operations on that left leg. Youre supposed to make it. But when you fly, the metal detector at the airport will ring like a slot machine."

Stu glimpsed his near future-first a wheelchair, then crutches, then a cane, then just a limp. Sorrow poured over him, but then poured off just as quickly, like a bucket of water over some rainproof fabric. He was too doped to be morbid, and he embraced the feeling of well-being the drugs created. Fake, but useful. He took a silent minute to shove the thoughts about his future into a heap in some back corner of his mind. He would sort through that pile later. "Thank you," he croaked, "for the truth."

"The truth sucks," Povich said, in what sounded like an apology.

"Truth is a relief," Stu said. "Sometimes when I cant decide if Im asleep or awake, I wonder if Im already dead."

"What happened in that car?"

Stu told him about the gunman and his prisoner at the side of the road, about the pistol in his face, the slalom down the old country road at seventy miles per hour in a car built for Sunday drives and backseat necking at the drive-in.

"Do you remember the crash?"

"I cant know if this is a memory or a dream," Stu admitted, "but Ill tell you."

Stu listened to the voices. Were they real? He struggled against sleep and opened his eyes. Through a blur, like through a smear of grease on gla.s.s, he saw tree trunks, looking like gray scratches on the black night. A trickle of cold water ran over his left arm. He was on his back. His whole left side was soaked. He wondered, embarra.s.sed: Have I p.i.s.sed myself? He listened to the gurgle of a tiny spring and realized he was on the ground. The earth beneath him was soft and smelled mossy. He was on a bed of pine needles. This would be a good place to camp, he thought. He listened for the voices. Somebody moaned. Footsteps shuffled through the underbrush. Stus breathing was shallow. He balled his hands into loose fists and wiggled his right foot. The left foot ignored him. What he felt was not pain, exactly, but a stunned detachment from the broken parts of himself. He understood that his mind had erected a dam to delay the flood of pain that would drown him if he felt it all at once. He was hurt deep inside his belly-that much, he knew. He was hurt in places only a doctor could reach. He tried to lift his head, but it weighed too much. He could not save himself; he would have to wait for help.

He inhaled deeply and smelled the car. His nose wrinkled at the stench of gasoline, burnt rubber, and the sickening fumes of smoldering vinyl and foam. There was a spicy metallic odor, too, he could not place at first, until he felt the hot rivulet down the side of his nose and realized he could smell his own blood.

He thought about his parents and felt a pressing sadness. They had decided twenty-five years ago to invest all their love in just one child, and now were too old to have another.

Someone moaned again. Stu thought about calling out but decided to save his strength. The moan had come from atop a steep embankment that began at Stus feet. He could make out the dark sc.r.a.pe on the hillside where his sliding body had gouged the forest floor. The underbrush crackled. Stus field of vision steadily narrowed as the flesh near his eyes swelled around his injuries.

With a hollow roar, a sudden explosion upon the hill flung yellow light against the trees. A fireball spun skyward in the shape of an unraveling question mark, and then burned out, leaving a thousand tiny orange fireflies where the flame had singed the pine trees. Stu waited to feel the heat of the explosion on his face. He felt just the coolness of the air beneath the hill, and was disappointed. He watched the fireflies die out to black. He listened to the fire excitedly explore the innards of his old Lincoln. The car had been his grandfathers. His grandfather had been a spiteful eccentric, and Stu had not cried when he had died. He cried for the old b.a.s.t.a.r.d now.