Portland Noir - Kevin Sampsell [45]
One of these days I’d go as far away as I wanted, and I knew he’d be there, home, when I got back. Tino was home, and he was mine.
We went back in the tavern. Rebar worked his muscled jaw. Maybe it was time for more meds, I had no clue.
Someone said my name, Vanessa, in the hiss of a whisper. I looked. The men lining the bar had their backs to our table. Music rattled under bad speakers. Nobody said my name. It was just noises, a cloud of tavern sounds; my name was a patchwork put together from scrap.
Tino said, “Come see Eileen. She’d like it.”
My hands were light and far away with the cold. I rubbed them together. “I don’t think we should visit Eileen. I’m fine here.”
Rebar said, “Jesus, Vanessa, she had brain surgery.”
I said, “Hospital-land. It creeps me out. All that mortality.” Then again, the bar was lined with vulture fodder.
Rebar said, “I started to like it.”
Tino said, “Ray won’t show up.”
I said, “You going?”
Rebar shook his head.
I said, “Okay.” So I’d shake off Rebar. Maybe I’d get lost on the way too. Except when I stood, Rebar stood. He said, “Swap shoes with me, man.” He kicked off a Sketcher. Tino ignored him. Rebar worked his shoes back on and hustled to catch up, snagging my arm to hold me back.
The hospital halls were miles of white, somebody’s idea of a sterile heaven, broken by red emergency phones and inset shrines of faded saints. Rebar put his arm over my shoulder. I hadn’t shaken anybody. He stooped to bring his face closer to mine and said, “Where I was, we had big rooms and new carpets. We had coffee machines.” His big feet swung out, ready to knock things down.
I heard my name again, in a whisper: Van-ess-a, Van-ess-a … It was under the swish of clothes and the wheels of the carts. Rebar’s coat sleeve rustled against my ear.
Tino skipped the reception desk.
“You been here before?” Rebar asked me.
“I was born here, but never been back.” The hospital was its own world, all clean, creased green uniforms. Aluminum carts, Formica. It was a different place from the world outside. In the hospital, pretty much I didn’t know anybody.
Rebar, Tino, and me—we were a walking cloud of tavern air, smoke, and beer breath. I reached a hand, laced one finger through Tino’s belt loop.
Vanessa.
I heard my name in the squish of shoes on hard linoleum, and the breath of coats as they exhaled. This time, though, when I turned, it was real. It was Mrs. Petoskey, our old grade school teacher. “Vanessa.” She said it.
She was in scrubs.
Rebar, Tino, and me, we stopped together. I said, “Hi.”
Mrs. Petoskey said, “Good to see you. How’s your mom?”
I shook my head. Brushed my hair out of the way. My mom? I didn’t know. I said, “Fine.”
Mrs. Petoskey smiled.
I said, “Still in the slammer.” Tino laughed, flashing his gapped teeth like it was a joke, and the funny thing was, it wasn’t. Mrs. Petoskey moved some tubes around on her cart. I said, “Meth charges.” Then I asked, “You don’t teach school?”
Mrs. Petoskey said, “No, well, things change.” And she waved a hand over her cart, pulled on a face mask, and pushed on through a set of swinging doors. “Take care.” Her voice was muffled by the mask.
Tino said, “Didn’t she have cancer before?”
I didn’t remember, but she probably did.
Eileen was in bed, watching TV, same as everyone in every dank hole of a tavern all over town. Her head was shaved and bandaged. Her face was puffy. She’d put on makeup and it sat like paint over her drained skin.
I