The Bad Crowd

Chapter 2a -What's the word for that color?

White walls. Plastic chairs. Glass partitions on half walls. A man with a mop. Fifteen empty wheelchairs, covered in fifteen folded blankets thinner than my t-shirt.

The hospital, I thought dimly. I’m at the hospital.

I wondered, as the man with the mop walked past, if the disinfectant they used here would be good for getting blood off the floor at home.

Had there even been blood? It seemed like there must have been. People didn’t get hurt without a bunch of blood being all over the place… did they?

Somewhere, the tik-thud of a clock. I didn’t want to think about blood or floors anymore.

T minus 30 minutes until my mom wakes up, 29:29... 29:28...

She couldn’t see me.

She had no idea I was even there.

A few minutes later, I looked toward the circular desk at one end of the room, at the mural of overly cheery children, their smiles feeling like a smack in the face. I should have been one of those, I thought, even if they did look a little creepy. Nobody was ever that happy.

The nurse picked up a sheaf of papers.

Another took her place.

One of them crossed the room to check the doors.

It was dark outside.

The Nocs…

They were out, by now. Had I closed the door?

They’ll get in. It’s only for a little while.

Did it matter? Nobody was inside, anyway…

I tried to hold onto the thought, wanting something solid under me.

No. Something easier. People. People were easier.

A woman with a flowery floor-length skirt comforted a boy younger than me; he was wearing a white face mask. He looked miserable. He coughed, and she wiped his forehead with a piece of tissue.

He’s gonna miss school.

My stomach roiled. My forehead felt slick. My lungs refused to fill.

The boy coughed.

I looked away.

My stomach settled.

An overweight man with a jittery leg and a bored expression, reading a very old issue of Home and Gardens. Much safer. The back cover lay on the floor next to his foot.

I wanted to pick it up.

I didn’t.

I shook my head, then immediately regretted it when the world kept moving and my stomach gave a sickly twist.

For the first time in what felt like way too long, I could feel my body again. The spot between my shoulder-blades still hurt. A lot of things hurt. With everything I could feel, there was one sensation I was missing. Was my heart beating?

It had been beating so hard, for so long, that I couldn’t fathom the idea of it being silent. I closed my eyes, smoothing the cloth of my shirt over my heart and closing my eyes for a few moments.

False alarm.

Strong and a little too fast. Good.

Is her heart beating?

Nope, nope, wasn’t going to think about that right now. I stood up, waiting for the world to settle beneath my feet before I took my first step.

That strange tingling nothing wouldn't go away. My blood had been replaced with fire ants.

Come on, come on, something easy.

Something human.

I decided on a vending machine, set back into a little alcove behind a glass barrier. The glass was cool under my hand, fogged with condensation. The fog thickened where I breathed on it, and I watched that circle expand and shrink for a few seconds, too focused on it to look beyond at what was actually inside.

When I did, dragging my sleeve over the glass to clear it, I frowned.

I couldn’t read it. It was all half squiggles, blurry images of brands I couldn’t bring to mind.

Did that mean I was dreaming?

Maybe. It sure felt like a dream.

I squeezed my eyes shut, pressing the heels of my hands into them until fractals of light and dark bloomed behind my lids.

When I opened them again, the words made more sense.

“Image enlarged to show texture”

“100 calories!”

“Always fresh, always potatoes”

I breathed a sigh of relief, and the glass fogged again.

“Hey, Eric, I need your help?”

I looked away from the window. Mom was coming inside, hands full of groceries, and one bottle of soda was perilously close to slipping out from under her arm.

“Now would be fantastic.”

The soda slipped just in time for me to catch it, hugging it against my chest. “I caught it, so it’s mine now, right?”

She leveled a look at me, then rolled her eyes “Until I get to the table, sure.”

Heck yeah!

I sprinted to the kitchen, stopping in front of the cupboard with a problem. Opening the cupboard required a hand I didn’t have unless I put my prize down.

That wasn’t happening.

I jammed the soda under my arm, reaching up on my toes to hook the bottom corner of the cupboard door, gasping when it started to slip from my grip.

She caught it, and before I could protest, she was pouring some into a plastic cup, ice clinking together inside it. “Your spoils, m’lord,” she said with an infectious smile, pushing it toward me.

The world slipped out from under me. Fluorescent lights. Right… hospital. I didn’t fall. Why hadn’t I fallen? Was I supposed to be falling?

She fell. She’s hurt.

I frowned and looked at my arm and saw that there was a hand wrapped around it, an arm around the backs of my shoulders. There was a woman’s face above me.

Mom?

No.

Of course not.

T minus 23 minutes until she wakes up.

“Are you alright?” the woman said, her mouth moving too slowly and at the same time too quickly for the sound of it. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

She steadied me, only moving her arm when I straightened on my own. I didn’t say anything, but her smile softened.

Your spoils, m’lord.

“You look like you need a snack. Here, pick anything you want.”

She said it wrong.

I watched her feed a few dollars into the machine, the way the buttons lit up from one glowing point behind the textured plastic… and then I reached up and pressed three fingers into that light, a little beep sounding as it accepted the request.

I watched the metal turn. Something fell.

Cheese doodles. Why did I pick those?

The bag dropped with a sound that reminded me of crunching leaves.

“No, no, I just raked those!”

“Come on, Eric, stop being responsible for a second and get in here!”

“You asked for it!”

I’d have to rake the leaves again. Worth it.

"Are you alright? Can you tell me your name?" Hands were on both of my shoulders, holding my body, but my mind kept…

“Eric, don’t ever scare me like that again! It’s not safe outside at night, I need to hear you say it!”

“It’s not safe at night, Eric.” I muttered.

Who let me be here alone?

Who left a kid in the lobby of a hospital?

“Eric…” this woman

“Eric.” My mom.

Of course she was. Where else would she be? Or… was she still at the bottom of the stairs? I’d seen her being wheeled out, right?

My head ached as I tried to force the world into focus. Into now, instead of into then.

“Eric. Eric… Boone? Oh, it’s you, I didn’t realize…”

Realize? Weren’t you supposed to know things before you realized them? I couldn’t even tell what wasn’t making sense because they were off and what wasn’t making sense because nothing made sense.

Wait… she knew my name?

Had I said my name? I… maybe?

She knelt. Her bright blue pants slid over her knees, and I found myself transfixed by the way they wrinkled behind her calf. She reached into the slot, pulling out the bag and offering it to me. "Do you know where you are?"

No.

“Yes.”

“I need to hear you say it.”

“It’s not safe outside at night.”

Her fingers dug into my shoulders. Her voice hardened. “I need to know you know where you are.”

I paused. That wasn’t the right answer? I frowned. I looked up at the ceiling.

T minus 19 minutes. Or was it 12?

“Hospital.”

Mom is hurt. Not a dream. Hospital. Mom is hurt.

“That’s right, Eric. You’re in the hospital. Good job.” The fingers stopped digging.

Something kept trying to push its way up my throat. Holding it down hurt. The harder I tried, the more it made my chest twitch and my fingers tighten around the bag.

When had I taken the bag? What was in it?

And then I was falling again, but this time it was because she had pulled me into her.

Her hair smelled like vanilla and sweat. Her shirt was blue, too. Almost too smooth to be fabric.

Her voice came from somewhere beside me, or past me. “I’m so sorry you have to deal with this, Eric, but I’m going to tell you a secret: Your mother is going to be okay, but she needs you to be strong, okay?”

Her shirt was wet when I pulled away. “What? How do you…”

Doctors weren’t supposed to be sure about things like that. There was a rule somewhere.

Was she even a doctor?

“You’ll be strong for her, right?”

Her eyes were green. Sort of. What's the word for that color? Hazel?

That smile was back, and it knew too much. It was supposed to be kind. That was what kind was supposed to look like. But something felt… off. Not dangerous, just… different.

T minus Ten minutes. 59… 58…

When she continued, it sounded too fast, but I didn’t think I was hearing it wrong. “I mean, when she wakes up, she's gonna need someone to help her out. She's going to be hurting for a little while, so she might ask you to help her keep things tidy, or get something off the floor. You make sure you do your best, got it?"

"Yeah," I mumbled without hearing myself.

"Everything will be OK, little man, you just wait and see!" She ruffled my hair and stood up. "I’m going to find someone to sit with you. You shouldn’t be out here on your own. Stay here for just a few minutes, sound good?”

She was gonna wake up in T minus six minutes. Nobody needed to watch me. Mom was going to wake up.

As she walked away I fully registered her outfit. Bright blue scrubs—a nurse.

My legs decided I was done standing, and I sat right where I was on the floor.

A nurse. Just a nurse.

She didn’t come back.

Time went soft again, hand moving from bag to mouth until I started to actually taste the cheese curls she’d bought me.

I didn’t like cheese curls.

I kept eating them anyway.

A sharp pain dragged me back into my body, and I blinked a few times, a man materializing out of exactly where he had already been. “What?”

“Oh, so you do see me. About damn time, asswipe. Move it.”

Move? Why would I move? How would I move? I hadn’t been the one piloting my body for probably the past six... Somethings... how long had I been sitting there?