ME AGAIN: Starting Over

CHRIS

CHRIS

Metropolitan General Hospital

24 August 2014

I wake up unhappy that Sam thinks bad about Holly, at the end of the day she’s just a friend to share nice evenings with, nothing else.

I’m looking at myself better, wearing a stupid white polka-dotted dressing gown and I can’t believe it, I’m lying down on a hospital bed.

What the hell happened? My eyes are still struggling to stay open and no new thought comes to mind. I stagger around the room. I don’t know why I’m here, nor for how long, the only sign I’ve got available is a long plaster on my leg.

I’m cold.

“Hey, let’s go back inside!” Davon offers to help me as soon as I peek into the door, it almost seems he wants to keep me hidden.

“Davon...’ The words still trail off from my mouth before they could make sense.

“Yeah, it’s me, but we’re going inside now”.

It’s my bewildered gaze softening him because, as serious and detached as he’s always been, he’s melting into a warm, comforting hug.

“What’s happened to me?” I ask him, confused.

“There was an incident during the concert. Some of the structure that was holding the stage up gave way, you were hit and lost your senses”. He described what happened with impassiveness and he seemed indifferent.

It’s suddenly like he turned a light on in my head. I remember everything; that damned feedback, strong enough to pierce my eardrums, the darkness, the screaming, the heat and … s**t.

“Sam, how’s Sam?” The terror takes hold of my voice and makes it tremble, with croaks holding part of the air between my vocal cords.

Davon looks up from the floor and I notice his eyes are bloodshot when he does.

“You have to be strong, Chris! Sam … didn’t make it”.

Few, simple and direct words.

I close my eyes, but open them up a minute later in the throes of a horrible feeling of dread. I don’t understand what he’s saying.

“You must promise me you’ll be strong, you have to for him”.

I breathe in all the air I can and I’m about to scream, but my vocal cords are blocked by a lump that gradually grows more threatening, enough to totally suffocate me.

I want to yell that it’s not true, that what I saw was only a bad injury. To ignore that pole piercing his abdomen, to think he made it and that, before long, he’ll come and see how I’m getting on.

His eyes wide open, inside that pale face that suffering drew, reappear in front of me and are even more frightening than I remember.

“Chris … Chris,” he’s calling my name as he’s looking for help, something I won’t be able to give him any more.

I stutter some words to answer as I try and keep myself alert.

“CHRIS!” somebody else beside me shouts. My world grinds to a halt.

There’s the light again. Something isn’t working well in my head any more and I’m seeing everything cloudy.

“Keep still, otherwise the stitching won’t go well”.

It’s a doctor fumbling around behind my head while a nurse, who I see is happy to be by my side, is holding a pair of scissors over my lips.

“All done! He can have his stitches out in a week, same for the leg too,” she determines as she turns to Davon at the end of my bed.

I sit up as I’m holding the bag of readymade ice resting on my cheekbone in my hand. I have another plaster right on my eyebrow. It was missing.

“Everything okay?” Davon asks me again and this time, I understand why. I must’ve taken some knock because half my face fell asleep but it’s nothing compared to what really happened that night.

I lay my hands on my thighs, not giving a damn about the ice or the stitches as I stifle a desperate moan I feel ready to come out of my lungs.

A sob of restrained pain gets lost in the middle of the tears that have now started to flow again. I wish I could hold this back, but I’m feeling so confused and the emotions get the better of me. I get up furious and want to break everything but, then, why? Nothing will change what happened.

“Try and keep calm! It’s better not to draw attention to yourself”.

“What the f**k are you talking about, Davon? Sam is dead and I don’t even have the right to grieve over him like I want to?”

“Yeah, of course. I’m saying don’t do it here, what with the journalists outside that door and …' He stops himself, embarrassed and worried all at once.

I look at him and he doesn’t look sincere. “It’s not for Sam that you’re telling me this, is it?”

“Calm down, Chris. If you feel better, we can go home,” he says, impassive.

“You’re unreal, Dav, how do you get to be so calm? You’ve just lost a friend, too, asshole!” I grab him by his shirt’s lapel to see if it’s a mask he’s wearing.

He is still dressed like he was during the concert, I therefore work out not too many hours will have passed.

“Chris, please leave me alone”.

“Why are so worried about other people seeing me suffer? Is there something I don’t know?”

“If you’re feeling better, let’s go home!” he insists.

“Get talking or I’ll seriously get pissed!” I threaten him, grasping his shirt all the tighter because I know him and that he acts this way when he’s something to hide.

“I need you to calm down, otherwise I’m not telling you anything!”

“Chris!” I hear another worried voice call out my name. Apparently, the whole band is still here, but what the hell’s going on?

“Let him be, Chris, I imagine you’re upset because of Sam, but Davon is doing his best for ya,” Louis goes on, trying to settle me down.

That’s what I do. I let go and like a good kid, I sit back onto the bed.

Tempers cooled and I see Davon and Louis give each other knowing looks.

“Well?!” I challenge him that much because I did what he wanted.

“See … I don’t know how to say this to you, so I’ll do this as direct as I can. A huge mess happened at the concert. The stage collapsed and a few people were injured, some for the panic and the darkness that came next. Sam … well, you know what happened to him already …’

“And … go on, on with it”.

“Here we are, there’s a girl of twenty-two that’s … seriously injured”.

I struggle to breathe as I try to muster the courage within me and, even though I don’t have it, I ask him to keep going, but my hands start trembling in a way I can’t explain.

“She’s in critical condition, Chris. She got a severe head injury and … still hasn’t regained consciousness at the moment”.

“f**k!” I curse out loud. “God … no … why all this?”

“That’s not all, Chris”.

I turn to look at him in disbelief and terror. He could even shoot me point blank in the head; I wouldn’t blame him this time. In fact, I wish he would right this instant to put an end to my suffering.

“The press is getting restless, the police have launched an investigation, but the arena contractor is formally denying any responsibility. They’re saying responsibility lies in explicit requests made by ... YOU”.

There’s the blow dealt, strong and sure like a freight train en route. The feeling of guilt overwhelms me. I want to go. I want to get out of here, to be free to think, to say or to do what I want.

I’ve a crazy wish to go back to normal as well as to end it all.

Sam is no longer with us and a young lady will have her life ruined and it’s my fault. As if that wasn’t enough, a tsunami is about to be unleashed on my life and it’s able to raze everything I’ve built over the years to the ground.

This is it, I’m thinking as I stay in total silence.

The tears are stinging my eyes, ready to jump out at the first hesitation. I want to scream, break everything up and then stay quiet.

“Where’s the girl?”

“Don’t even think about it!”

I’m about to throw him a punch, but Louis grabs my arm.

“I can’t pretend anything, you prick!”

“She’s the next floor up in this hospital but … it’s best you don’t go there, Chris! Listen to me, I’m saying this for your own good!” Davon tries to talk me out of it, I can see him upset, but I impulsively move towards the door. I don’t even know where to do, a sense of disbelief is playing games with me and upsets all my thoughts.

“Chris, don’t. You shouldn’t even be walking”.

“Come with me now and nothing’s gonna happen”.

They’ve got to take me in my wheelchair to the floor above, under the pretense of not bursting my fresh stitches, but I guess it’s more of a way of controlling myself. f**k it if they pop, though. I’ll have to keep still for at least a week, apparently, but only God knows if I’ll still get up out of bed after today.

Everyone turns to look at me in the hospital’s corridors, somebody’s smiling, somebody turns the other cheek as if I didn’t exist. God, such a mess! It takes years of effort to try and be a somebody and just a moment to be plunged into hell.

I arrive at a waiting area full of guys aged twenty or thirty and in between them, some figures in suit and tie stand out, as well as private security.

My eyes are looking for Davon, expecting a confrontation with him, but perspicaciously, he motions at me to look through a window. I see the girl lying on the bed, covered only by a white sheet while a shock of blond curly hair comes out from under a bandage wrapped around her head. She’s unconscious, but is breathing without assistance and, as far I understand this kind of thing, that’s good. I find out by squinting at the clipboard hanging from the bed that the girl is called Madison and my heart shrinks thinking about her condition.

“What are you doing here?” a fiftysomething man furiously asks in his jacket and tie, looking like he’s just come from the bank.

“Please understand, he's upset. He just wanted to see how your daughter’s doing,” Davon answered for me.

I’m still hypnotized against the glass, looking at that immobile body in slumber, with my eyes again starting to burn. “So then, you are the famous singer my daughter’s fallen in love with and who she’s risking her life for?” he asks ironically, looking me up and down in my hospital gown.

He certainly doesn’t expect an answer, but words come out of my mouth all of a sudden.

“I’m so sorry, sir...’

“Mr. Parker!” He corrects me with such venom that I can feel his anger from feet away.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Parker, I’d prefer to the one lying on that bed myself and believe me, I’m bewildered at this time. I’d very much like this never to have happened”.

“I’d be otherwise surprised. Chris Levi, you’re a finished man, believe me. What happened today will end your career. I’ll hang you out to dry so hard that nobody will ever want to come to your concerts again. Get out of here now; you’re not welcome here”.

I’m taken away before I could respond.

“Take me home, guys!” I beg as once I’m in the room in shock. I need to have a drink and can’t here, I want to get drunk until I stop thinking and then start sleeping all over again, in that exact order.

I’m sure that, when I wake up tomorrow, I’ll find out all of it’s been a goddamn nightmare.