Part 33 (2/2)
”No one's going to take her away.”
Shane caught his wife's eye. It was not, he shook his head subtly, out of the realm of possibility.
June explained, ”Caley needs an ice bath. He needs one right now.”
Janelle said clearly, ”We'll take two cars.”
Shane moved quickly. He took Caleb and Nicholas, and Janelle drove June and Lily. They moved up the steep hill of Van Ness. In the mirror, he saw Caleb's eyes closed. This did not seem good.
”Hey,” he called.
His brother's brown eyes fluttered. His body shook immeasurably. Shane met Nicholas's happy eyes in the rearview mirror.
”Your uncle,” Shane told him, ”is out of his f.u.c.king mind.”
At the hospital he was blindsided by melancholy; he had last visited here the day of Nicholas's birth, perhaps the happiest day of his life. He carried Caleb to the emergency room as Janelle took Nicholas, June, and Lily to the Children's Hospital across the street.
Inside, they sat in the crowded waiting area between a large Chinese family and an old ponytailed man who stank of something he placed as gin. Janelle texted a constant feed of updates: her mother was coming to take Nicholas home. Lily was being registered.
”Ice bath,” Caleb repeated.
”Please be okay,” Shane muttered. ”Please don't go anywhere.” This was the finest hospital in San Francisco, Shane told himself. There was no need to feel any panic. Still, he returned to the triage nurse, and explained Caleb's request.
”We have a gunshot victim,” the nurse told him flatly.
Over the next hour, Caleb seemed to worsen. His muscles stiffened and his breathing grew shallow. Finally, he was admitted to a bed. It was a small s.p.a.ce, separated by stained green curtains from its neighbor, filled with cl.u.s.ters of wires, machines, the smell of pain and antiseptic. A new nurse brought in a thin faded hospital gown.
”Everything off. Tie this in the back.”
Shane removed Caleb's disgusting rags. Underneath was a h.e.l.l of welts around his waist from the pack's belt, sunburns along his arms and ribs, blisters and open sores all over his shoulders. He looked as if he had been tortured. Shane pulled off his shorts and saw Caleb's thighs, swollen and grotesque. Then he moved to his feet.
Shane jumped back.
They were all wrong. Gnarled, discolored, toes facing the wrong directions, absent of nails. The skin was black and scarlet. They were not even identifiable as feet. They were inhuman. He retched.
”Ice,” Caleb slurred through cracked lips.
Shane sat him onto the bed and began to pull the gown around him. Jesus, he kept thinking, this body. What it was capable of. What it had been through.
”Hey, Caleb”-he tried to smile-”what do the losers of these races look like?”
The short nurse attached a heart monitor to his chest and began inserting IV lines into his forearms. When the needle touched his skin Caleb sat up and attempted to push himself off of the bed.
The nurse shot Shane a look of concern. ”Please have him stop fighting.”
”He needs an ice bath.”
The nurse frowned. ”He doesn't have a fever.”
”That will stop his muscles from . . . look.” He gestured to the convulsions in Caleb's body.
”You can ask the doctor,” she informed him, opening and loudly closing the curtain behind her. After some time, a small physician swept them aside. He struck Shane as tired; in his eyes were long s.h.i.+fts of service.
”I'm Doctor Ong.”
He began a cursory examination, pressing into Caleb's abdomen, listening to his chest.
”What happened here?”
”He ran an ultramarathon. Two hundred miles.”
”Ice bath. Reiki,” Caleb whispered weakly.
”We don't do reiki here. This is emergency medicine.”
”He runs these all the time,” Shane suggested. ”He always does this ice bath.”
”You can do that at home.” Doctor Ong spoke seriously to Caleb. ”Your heart rate's over one-forty. You're dehydrated. It's putting a strain on all of your organs. I'm going to order a CT and some blood work to check your heart, kidney, and liver function.”
Caleb shook his head back and forth. He looked to Shane like an animal under threat. ”No radiation.”
Doctor Ong turned to Shane with a sudden force. ”He needs to let us do our job.”
”He will.”
Abruptly, he left.
”Let them check you out,” Shane said.
”I want to go home.”
”What's one CAT scan, to make sure you're okay?”
”I have the right to leave here.”
The nurse returned shortly, carrying a pill.
Shane squinted at it. ”What's that?”
”It's to calm him down. Doctor Ong wants him to have it. I can put it into his IV,” she whispered.
”It's up to him.”
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