Jumper: Griffin's Story (22 page)

He helped me to sit. I was naked. My shirt, pants, underwear, my shoes, my socks, were all in a corner, in a bloody pile–even my shoes had blood on them. I had an IV in my left arm, some clear fluid running down the tube. The room spun and he kept his hands on my shoulders until I said,
"Bien."

He put a dressing on and fastened it by taping all the way around my ribs, watching me carefully to make sure I didn't fall over,
"Usted recuerda ser atacado ? "

Well, yes, I did remember being attacked but I shook my head.
"No. Sucedio muy rapido."
It happened too fast.

He took a plastic bag from the far counter and started to hand it to me.
"Tenga su dinero
–are you American?" He'd noticed the dollars. His English was thickly accented but colloquial.

"British," I said.

"Oh. Your Spanish sounds like
Mexico
."

I nodded. "Yeah–that's where I learned it."

"I went to school in
Texas
," he said. "
Baylor
Medical
School
."

"Ah. I've lived in
California
. I'm a little cold, Doctor."

"Oh, forgive me." He pulled a cabinet open and took out an examination robe. "I'm a pediatrician. My clinic is near where you were mugged and I live next to it. I'm afraid I stitch up a lot of the local bar fighters." He took out the IV and helped me put on the robe. "What hotel are you staying at?"

"None. Only just arrived."

"Oh, so they stole your passport. I was hoping it was at your hotel."

I shook my head.

"The nearest British consul is in
Bilbao
. I think they can issue emergency passports."

I nodded.

"You need to be very careful–I stitched together three different layers of muscle. No exercise for four weeks, and then some physiotherapy." He pursed his lips. "It could've been much worse. I think they were going for your kidney. You would've died within minutes."

I remembered twisting around at his movement.
Yeah, he missed.
But if he hadn't, it wouldn't matter how fast I'd jumped? "I would've bled to death?"

"Oh, yes. The renal artery is very big. Only immediate attention in a trauma center could have saved you. Your attacker must've been a very desperate man."

I blinked. "I'm not feeling much."

"Oh, you will. You'll need something for the pain. I'll write you a script."

"And the stitches?"

"Ten days. The internal ones will dissolve–don't worry about them."

"Okay."

"If there is redness or discharge or swelling, get to a hospital."

"Okay. How much do I owe you?"

"You don't have insurance?"

"No."

He told me how much he would've been charged against an insurance company and I gave him that and half again in the U.S. dollars.

"The police are waiting to talk to you."

"Of course," I said.

I asked to use his bathroom and didn't come out.

At first, I slept well, but the lidocaine faded and pain brought me awake, a shout of pain echoing off the walls of the Hole. It was agony to put a T–shirt on. Merely painful to pull on some shorts.

I jumped to
a farmada
in La Crucecita. I didn't care if the bastards detected the jump–you don't need prescriptions to get pain medication in
Mexico
. I explained my problem to the pharmacist, even started to lift my shirt to show the dressing, but raising my left arm was not in the cards.

The pharmacist looked alarmed at my expression and gestured for me to put the shirt back down.
"Treinte–nueve puntadas ?
" The number of stitches really impressed him.

"Verdad."

He sold me a bottle of Tylenol with codeine. I jumped back to the Hole before I was through the door.

I wasn't able to get back to sleep but the ache died to a dull throbbing. I dressed carefully and shopped for new shoes, first in
San Diego
, then in
Rennes
. Had to let the clerk tie them for me. At six that evening I carefully boarded the
Southwest Chief
at
Los Angeles
' Union Station, let the conductor show me to my expensively exclusive room, and, with the aid of the pills, slept fitfully on my right side.

My plan had been to sketch at every stop along the way, but the drugs knocked me (and that plan) on its ass. I did manage a few drawings out the stateroom window at the stations in Kingman,
Flagstaff
, and Winslow. In
New Mexico
I got
Albuquerque
, Lamy, and Raton, but I doubled up on the pills after that and slept all the way through
Colorado
and most of
Kansas
, waking up in time to sketch
Lawrence
and
Kansas City
. There was only one other stop in Missouri, La Plata, and only one in the corner of Iowa before we began crossing Illinois. I gave up drawing. Everything hurt too much and the pills were making me constipated.

The last five hours into
Chicago
were misery encased in a fuzzy drug fog. I stank–I hadn't trusted my ability to keep the stitches dry and just washing my armpits was surprisingly difficult. I'd been bumped by other passengers several times as I tottered along the passageway to the dining car.

And I'd been thinking.

He'd told them. Investigator Vigil had told them I'd be at the library. They'd been waiting. They'd either gotten there ahead of me or come in a different entrance, possibly circumventing the emergency exit alarms.

But Vigil had told them.

Bastard.

I checked into a hotel near the station, paying in advance. I explained that I'd been mugged and that was why I didn't have any ID. Looking at my face in the mirror later, I looked older than I remembered. I
was
older, but the real change stemmed from the pain. Maybe they thought I was over eighteen or maybe they just felt sorry for me.

I used the bathtub, gratefully, leaving my left arm down, the water shallow. I managed to get rid of the stink and even wash my hair a bit. The bed was softer than mine back in the Hole, but even with the drugs, every noise brought me awake with an adrenaline rush. Finally, I turned on the lights, got a good look at the room, and jumped back to the Hole, where, harder bed or not, I actually slept for six hours.

That was when I turned the corner, I think.

It hurt the next morning but not so bad. It was manageable.

I didn't take a pill, and by the time I'd finished breakfast back in the
Chicago
hotel, the drug–induced haze was lifting.

The
Lakeshore Limited
left at 7:55 P.M. and arrived at Penn Station midafternoon the next day. I'd slept better than I had since the attack and as soon as I was off the train I bought a New Jersey Transit ticket for
Trenton
. While I waited for the 5:01 train, I drew a nook under the
Seventh Avenue
steps. The train was ridiculously crowded, but then it was rush hour. It hurt to sit, anyway, so I found a corner where I could prop myself without leaning against the stitches.

The trip was just over an hour.

Trenton
was wet, light rain.

The concessionaire had a
Trenton
map.
Trenton
Central
High School
, where E.V. went, was about a half mile from the station and her address, on

But it was raining and an hour standing on the train had wiped me like a blackboard. I sketched a spot on Platform ID, complete with scurrying commuters, and jumped back to the Hole.

Ten days after the attack, I went back to Dr. Uriarte, waiting with mothers and their sick kids in his pediatric waiting room.

He blinked when he saw me, puzzled, and then he remembered.
";Es usted!
Where did you go?" He looked around at the interested audience and waved me back to his examining rooms. Several women who'd been there before me looked murderous.

When he'd closed the door to the examining room he said, "The police were very upset with me. They said I was lying when I told them you'd left, naked."

"Lamento mucho.
I didn't mean for them to bother you. I need my stitches out, but if it would cause trouble, I could find someplace else. I'll pay cash."

He considered it. "Of course we'll take out your stitches. They didn't
say
to call if you came back."

"Ah.
Muchas gracias."

He had one of his nurses pull them while he dealt with some of the other patients and their angry mothers, but he came back and examined the cut when she was done. "Excellent. There will always be a scar. A line, but I think you won't have any functional damage."

I paid him twice what he said the amount was.

I called on a Friday night, from Penn Station. She wasn't at home but her mother told me she'd be back by ten and she was, snatching up the phone when it rang at 10:05 P.M.

"Hello?"

"Hello, E.V., it's–"

She interrupted. "It
is
you. I've been waiting almost an hour! My mother could've called me–I was just down the block at Rhonda's! She didn't realize it had to be an overseas call!"

"Well, no. Actually not. I'm in
New York City
."

She was quiet for a second then said, "Really?"

"Really. I was wondering if I could drop off that sketch, tomorrow, perhaps, if your schedule is clear."

She laughed. "Clear. Mother? Is my 'schedule' clear tomorrow?" She said it British, like I had, "shed–youl." "Of course my schedule is clear." This time she said it with the hard
c.
"Where? When? Should I take a train into the city?"

I liked that idea a lot but I said, "No. Don't think your parents would give that a go, would they? Better I should come to you. All right if I come around about ten?

"How'd you know that?"

"Maps, m'dear. Maps."

"Oh. Well, that would be fine. What are you doing in
New York
?"

"Talking to you."

I jumped to the
Trenton
station the next morning and joined the crowd getting off a
Philadelphia
train. I walked, stretching my legs more and more. The cut was still incredibly sore but I was regaining my stamina. I no longer got dizzy standing up, and I was able to manage the boxed sketch under my right arm. For the first time in two weeks, I felt clean, having had an excellent shower–no worries about getting the stitches wet.

There were buds just beginning on the trees and green grass sprouting among last year's brown. Her home was a yellow–brick two–story with an enclosed porch. She'd called it a "colonial" on the phone. She was on the stairs when I turned onto the block, though she waited until I was in her yard before advancing to meet me. I could tell she was going to try to hug me, so I held out the box, quickly, and she had to halt her advance to take it.

"Come in, come in."

Both her parents were waiting in the front parlor. Her mother was standing by the window and her dad was seated, with a book, but I had the feeling they'd both been waiting. I put on my best manners as I was introduced.

"Pleasure to meet you. Charmed."

Mrs. Kelson was a redhead but running to silver. Mr. Kelson wore his dark hair cut seventies–long, over the ears, over the forehead. It hadn't gone gray yet or there was dye involved. I didn't like his smile–it didn't touch his eyes.

It may have been a "who are you and what are you doing with my daughter" thing.

Her mum's smile was genuine, though. Mrs. Kelson loved the sketch. E.V.'s dad said "very nice," but his brow was furrowed and he stole surreptitious looks from the sketch to his daughter and back.

"You made a copy?" E.V. asked.

"Yeah, I've got a decent photocopy." I didn't say it was twice the size of the original and hung beside my bed. I didn't think that would go over so big–not with her father.

"What are you doing in
New York
,
Griffin
?" asked Mr. Kelson.

"On my way home from
Europe
. I live in
Southern Cal
."

"Oh, really? Not
England
?" He looked at his daughter.

"We didn't really discuss it, Daddy. I saw him in
London
and he's British. What was I supposed to think?"

"Yeah," I added. "We were talking about drawing, mostly."

"Where in
Southern California
?"

"Out in the desert, in west
San Diego
County
. The nearest town is called Borrego Springs." This was the truth, after all, but then I lied. "I spend half the time with my uncle in
California
, the other half in Lechlade, in Oxfordshire, with my grandparents. I was visiting a friend's cousin when I met E.V. in
France
."

"Your schooling must be complicated," Mrs. Keslon said.

"I'm on self–study. Homeschooling. It's the only way this works. When I go to university, it'll be different."

E.V. turned to face her parents. She said, "I'm taking
Griffin
to Laveta's for coffee."

"We've got coffee here–" That furrow between Mr. Kelson's eyebrows was back again but Mrs. Kelson cut in, saying quickly, "Certainly. Are you going to get lunch out, or would you like to eat with us? Patrick's coming in from
Princeton
on the train."