Riley Park (3 page)

My veins are cold steel. Officer Rex swims in front of my face. And then there is nothing.

The nurse is adjusting a bag of fluid that hangs over my bed. My eyelids feel like lead. I struggle to open my eyes wide enough that I can see her. The nurse looks down at me and then glances at the clock. She moves to the end of the bed, opens a clipboard and makes a note. “Nice to see you awake, Corbin.”

I blink, trying to clear my vision. It's not the nurse from the er, the one who pumped my stomach. This nurse is small with dark hair.

“Where am I?”

She looks at me and smiles. “What did you say?”

I try to clear my throat. It feels like the sides of my throat are stuck together. I'm in the hospital. That much is clear. Around me, machines beep and blink. I can't see another bed—I must have my own room. What I want to know is where is Darius? I work a tiny wad of spit down my throat. “Water.”

The nurse moves to a table by the bed. She fills a plastic cup partway with water, then puts a bending straw into the cup. She holds the straw to my lips.

It's warm, but it tastes sweet, like the best thing I've ever drank.

“Slowly,” the nurse says.

As if on cue, water goes down the wrong way and I cough, spitting water across the sheet.

She says, “You've been out for a while. The surgery was more complicated than the doctors expected.” The nurse puts the water back on the table. “Your parents were here. We just sent them home to rest.”

I bring my hand in front of my face. I notice a tube taped on top of my hand. The tube connects to a needle piercing my vein. My fingers feel stiff and my hand itches where the needle sticks in. I lift my hand to my head.

The nurse says, “They had to open your skull. The surgeon will be in later to talk to you.”

They had to open my skull? That can't be good. When I touch my head, all I feel is tape.

I say, “Did they put it all back?”

The nurse looks at me, her eyebrows furrowed. “Sorry?”

“My brain.”

She still looks confused.

“Never mind. It was a joke.”

The nurse checks my pulse and then bustles around the bed, straightening the sheet.

I say, “I need to go see Darius.”

Her hands pause on the sheet.

I repeat, “Darius. He came to the hospital when I did. We're friends.”

Her tone softens. “You're our only patient in the ICU.”

The ICU. Intensive care. That's where they put you if you're really screwed. Darius was worse off than me—he'd be in intensive care too. I say, “If Darius isn't in the
ICU
, maybe he's in the regular
U
.”

Again with the eyebrows.

“Could you please just check? His name is Darius...”

She sighs. “Why don't you wait until your mom and dad come back?”

“Why? What will they do that you can't do?”

The nurse puts her hand on my arm. I don't know why that bothers me so much, but I want to flick it off. She says, “Your friend.” She takes a breath. “He didn't make it.”

Now her dark hair is fading to gray, and I see the emergency room nurse, and I hear the heart-rate monitor from behind the curtain. Darius's heart-rate monitor. And I remember now the sound it made when his heart stopped.

I swallow. “No, you're wrong. They started his heart. Maybe he's in the heart ward or something.”

The nurse pats my arm, and now I am pissed off. She says, “Corbin, your friend died.”

I bat her arm so that she knocks the water cup over. I blink again and again. Now there are two dark-haired nurses, now three, swimming in front of my face. “Get out.”

She picks up the cup and sets it on the table. “I'll just get some paper towel and mop that up.”

I scream, and my throat feels like raw meat. “Get out!”

The nurse presses a button on the wall.

“Out!”

Another nurse throws open the door. Right behind her I see the square shape of Officer Rex. He says, “Good. You're awake.” He strides up to the bed. “You need to answer some questions.”

He pulls a notebook from his pocket. Something shines on his front teeth. It looks like he's wearing braces.

I say, “She said Darius is dead.” I motion with my hand to the nurse.

Officer Rex nods. “That can't really surprise you.”

I swipe tears from my eyes.

Officer Rex hands me a tissue. To the nurses, he says, “Leave us for a few minutes, would you?”

When the nurses are gone, he turns to me. “You were pretty mad at your friend.”

“No.”

“That's what people are telling me. That you and Darius had a fight.”

“What people? Jason? He wants my starting spot on the team. He'd do anything to drag me down.”

“Maybe you'd like to beat up Jason too.”

“I would, but I didn't beat up Darius. I told you what happened. We got jumped, or Darius got jumped and I happened to be there.”

“Wrong place at the wrong time.” He runs his tongue over his teeth. “Seems pretty severe to just randomly beat a guy. Makes sense that there's a reason.”

“It doesn't make sense. Like, how can this make sense?”

He shrugs. “It makes sense that about ten people told me you roughed up Darius earlier in the evening. It makes sense that you got drunk and passed out.” He scratches his head with the pen. “Your prints are all over the weapon.”

“So, what, like I cracked open my own head?”

“You fell when you got Tasered.”

“Someone hit me in the back of the head.”

“Did you see who hit you? Maybe Darius hit you. Maybe you gave back a little better than you got.”

I am suddenly so tired. “I'm going to tell you everything, okay? I just have to know. Is Darius dead?”

He nods. “He died yesterday morning. Twice they restarted his heart. The second time, he hung on just long enough for his mom to get here.”

A man in green scrubs opens the door.

Officer Rex puts the notebook back in
his pocket. He turns to me and says, “Now it's a murder charge. Better get yourself a lawyer.”

Officer Rex moves back from the bed. The man in green introduces himself as the surgeon. He shines a light in my eyes and then flips open the clipboard at the end of the bed.

The surgeon says to me, “You're lucky to be alive.”

But Darius is dead.

He says, “Whoever did this to you, they wanted to do some real damage.”

I glance over at Officer Rex. His eyes narrow.

The surgeon continues, “You received a high-energy direct blow to the skull, small surface area, with a blunt object, probably a baseball bat.”

Officer Rex steps up. “Or a steel bar.”

The surgeon shrugs. “Or a steel bar. Centrifugal spread of fragments from the point of maximum impact—”

Officer Rex interrupts. “What?”

The surgeon sighs. “Corbin took it straight across the back of the head, basically. The assailant was at least as tall as him. Depressed open fracture, contaminated, with ensuing hematoma—”

Again, Officer Rex breaks in. “As tall as Corbin?”

The surgeon nods. “Maybe a bit taller, but not much.”

Darius is shorter. Was shorter.

The surgeon takes a breath and continues. “I can only tell you what the injury tells me. Fracture pattern, type, extent and position determine causative force. Assessment of sustained injury indicates epidural hematoma.” He closes the clipboard and,

finally, looks at me. “We went in and elevated the fracture. The next few weeks will tell us the extent of damage to the brain. You'll be in icu until we assess the risk of seizure.”

Brain damage? Seizure?

“No physical activity that might compromise the injury,” the surgeon says. “No alcohol or drugs.”

I find my voice. “I have hockey practice.”

His eyebrows lift. “Uh, hockey would be a physical activity that might compromise the injury.” Then, like he's sorry for making me sound like an idiot, he says, “No contact sports. No running. A brisk walk is good.”

“I'm on the starting line in our next game.”

“No hockey.”

“I'm getting scouted.”

He shrugs. “No hockey.”

I say, “How long before I can play?”

The surgeon returns the clipboard to the end of the bed. “Don't push your luck.” He goes to the door and pulls it open. “We saw more of your brain than we ever like to see.”
He pauses, like he's considering what he's about to say. When he speaks, he sounds tired. “With this kind of trauma, it's not just the injury. If we could fix the other stuff, then we'd be doing something.” He leaves and the door closes behind him.

Officer Rex clears his throat. “So your friend wasn't tall enough to do this to you, and it didn't happen when you fell. Looks like you were attacked.”

“I'll cancel my call to the lawyer.”

“Not yet. You'll be charged for resisting arrest at the very least. And if I get my way, you'll pay for this dental work.” He bares his teeth to reveal metal bands on his top and bottom teeth. “It's a splint. Temporary, I hope. Apparently it will keep my teeth from falling out. The guys at the station say I have braces. They think it's hilarious.”

I say, “It was an accident. I thought you were one of them.”

He retrieves his notebook from his pocket. “One of them. Who would that be?”

“I told you, I don't know. I've never seen the guys before.”

“This kind of attack isn't random,” he says. “You pissed someone off in a big way. Good thing a neighbor called in a complaint that your fire was so big you were going to burn down the park. Otherwise, we wouldn't have shown up. You might be dead too.”

I think back to the night. It plays in black and white. “We went cliff jumping, me and Darius.”

I think about how, when we jumped, we were so close I could touch him. If I reached out my hand, I would have been able to touch his shoulder.

I hear Darius's laugh. I watch him swimming.

Red and white roses.

Officer Rex stares at me. Was I talking out loud? I say, “Then a girl came.”

Officer Rex tilts his head. “A girl?”

“Rubee. I don't know her, not really. She works at Safeway, the one near Riley Park.”

Officer Rex writes something in his notebook. “So what about the girl? Was she with you?”

My eyes hurt, like the light is suddenly too bright. “No. Not with me.”

“With Darius?”

Wildman.

“No. I don't know. Maybe.”

Probably.

I say, “She didn't stay long.”

“So she wasn't there when you were attacked?”

Red and white roses, floating on the water, but they weren't on the water. There were no roses. I'm imagining them.

I say, “She wasn't there.”

“Looks like you're the only witness.” Officer Rex pockets his notebook. “Maybe you'll think of something you missed. If I'm going to find the guys who killed Darius, I don't have a lot to go on.”

Darius. How can he be gone?

Officer Rex moves to the door and then turns to look at me. He says, “I'm sorry about your friend.” He leaves.

I've been in the hospital for a few days, and already the food is old—in every way. I push aside the tray of hospital lunch—tuna sandwich made with bread that curls up at the edges, and vegetable soup with orange-colored grease blobs on the surface.

Officer Rex is here, again. He takes the sandwich. He sniffs it and says, “It's perfectly good.”

“It's all yours,” I say.

Maybe my parents will bring me real food, like a pizza. They come every night after work. There's a price to their visits. My mom always cries. My dad always looks like I did this to him. If I cracked my head open in a hockey game, it would be okay. It's not okay that I was drunk at a party—like it really makes any difference.

I watch Officer Rex devour the tuna sandwich in three bites. He says, “I guess you prefer hot dogs.”

I shudder. I say, “Uh, you've got some sandwich stuck in your braces.”

He tongues the front of his teeth. “It's a splint.”

I hand him a carton of milk. “Here, you can have this too.”

He eyes the milk and then says, “You should drink it.”

“It's warm.”

He shrugs. “Okay. No sense it going to waste.”

By the look of his gut, Rex doesn't let much go to waste.

He swigs the milk and then swishes it in his mouth to dislodge the food bits from his dental work. If I was hungry before, I'm sure not hungry now. He finishes the milk and wipes his mouth on the back of his hand.

He says, “I brought some pictures for you to look at—see if you recognize any of the guys that attacked you.”

He hands me a sheet of about fifty small photos. I say, “What are these, mug shots?”

“Driver's license photos.” He burps. “We only have mug shots if a guy's been arrested for something.”

I push the button that turns on the light over the bed. “The pictures are so small I can hardly see them.”

“Take your time.”

The photos are all of young men with similar features. I scan the photos and point to one. “This could be the guy with the bar.” I move my finger down the sheet. “Or this guy.” I hand him back the sheet. “There are about ten pictures that look like the same guy.”

“Did the guy with the bar have any distinguishing marks—a tattoo, maybe, or a scar?”

“It was dark. They hit us from behind.” I think about Darius on the ground. “I didn't get a good look at any of them.”

Officer Rex sighs. “Try again.” He hands me the sheet.

I hold the sheet up closer to my eyes. Now the images blur. My head hurts from looking so hard. I say, “There's a good reason I'm looking at these?”