This chapter is part of the ongoing serialization of The Archaeologists, the new novel by Hal Niedzviecki to be published by ARP Books in Fall 2016. The Archaeologists is being serialized in its entirety from April to October with chapters appearing on a rotating basis on the websites of five great magazines. To see the schedule with links to previous/upcoming chapters and find out more, please click HERE.
31. Tim—Thursday, June 26
Where?
Dizzy.
Gotta—
Tim grips the metal railings of the bed. He manages to pull himself up into a sitting slump. His head lolls, thin neck useless. Tim contemplates the whites of his pallid thighs. A swathe of black stitches holds together a vertical gash. He falls back, exhausted. No. I gotta—
Tim takes a deep painful breath and tries again. He slumps forward, his face in the crotch of his hospital nightgown. He hears footsteps, the swirl of a curtain, someone coming.
And just where do you think you’re going, mister? The tone is jokingly annoyed. Hands push him back. A face lowers. It’s a nurse scowling distastefully, permanently, her coffee yellow teeth showing.
There, that’s better. Can you hear me?
Tim breathes, nods. It hurts. To breathe. To nod.
Where? Comes out: Whuuu…?
You’re in the hospital.
Whuuu? Wuur?
You’re in the Hospital. Wississauga General Hospital
…nuuuuuu…Tim grabs the rails, tries to hoist himself up over the side.
Calm down now, we’re going to take good care of you. You just need to calm down.
Tim hits the bars of the bed with fists. The rails reverberate.
Just relax now, you’re okay. I’m just going to—
No no no no no no no—
We better—
More footsteps.
—2 ccs—Ativan—
Footsteps receding.
Tim closes his eyes, sees black.
Is there someone we can call? Family? Friends?
Tim blinks, considers the doctor high above him. A trick question? He was driving away from Charlie’s. And then—what happened then?
—Carly—
When can I go? he rasps. His throat is sore, dry. He reaches a shaking hand for the water on his bedside tray.
Here, let me help you. The doctor holds the cup as Tim bobs for the bendy straw and sucks.
There, how’s that?
Tim nods. Thanks.
The doctor looks down at him.
You’re a lucky young man, you know that? When they found you you’d already lost a lot of blood. Multiple contusions. A concussion. Bruised ribs. We put twelve stitches in your scalp. And of course, the coma.
Tim can feel the stitches in his head, a tightening bald patch.
…extreme toxification of the system. High doses of narcotics in your blood. Weakened heart rate and pulse as a result of the system being drugged to the point of shut down. Plus dehydration and malnutrition. You could have had a heart attack and dropped dead, son. 308
Son? I’m not your—
How luung?
What’s that? The Doctor leans close, stethoscope dangling.
How long? Tim manages.
How long? You’ve been in and out of consciousness for, let’s see, the Doctor consults the chart in his hand. Almost two months. We thought we were going to lose you.
Prescription, Tim mutters, staring at the blue curtain the doctor’s pulled around the bed. Took, a few, too many…
You don’t need to explain anything to me, son. You’re going through a hard time. I get that. I’m just saying—look, if you had collapsed on your couch watching TV at home alone, you’d be dead now. Do you understand me? Consider yourself lucky that someone saw you on the side of the road. Think of this as a second chance.
Tim shrugs.
You need to rest. And you need to get plenty to eat and drink. We’ll move you out of the ICU tomorrow as soon as there’s a bed empty upstairs. In the meantime, I’d like you to talk to someone. She’s a…doctor on our staff. A Psychiatrist. She can help you with the memory loss, okay? Help you figure out who you are.
Tim shrugs.
The doctor stares down at Tim, who turns his head to the curtain isolating his bed.
Blue, Tim thinks. Blue like the shimmering sky. And behind it? Bodies. Empty. Empty bodies.
He wakes up slowly. His head is fuzzy, the blood pounding against his skull when he tries to think.
I’m better. Time to—
Time is money, Timmy boy!
Thanks Dad. Thanks a bundle. And good luck down there, by the way, good fucking luck.
Carly says there’s no such thing as luck. Carly says everything is connected, everything happens for a reason.
—Carly—
To his left, the curtain is peeled back, revealing a withered shape draped in sheet. Tim sees a shrunken crab-apple crone’s head. To his right, a machine man, inert chest getting air in processed pumps. Where is he, really? What weird hell? Dreaming. He dozed off. He’s still dreaming. No. Awake now, he can feel the pinch of his stitched scalp, the pressure in his chest when he breathes too deep. The ancient specimen next door twitches, mutters, falls still.
Everything around him humming in place, in still repetition. Tim has the sensation of night, greyish suburban gloom. Suddenly he longs for the forest gully. The crackling bonfire, the feel of the cold earth against his back. The metallic taste of the air, trees swaying in a cold spring breeze while the river runs its endless marathon.
Nurse! Nurse! Nurse! Nurse! He stabs the red button.
What can I do for you? She glares down at him.
It really hurts. My…head. It’s true, Tim thinks. It really does hurt. Can you give me something to—?
Let me see, the nurse says, scowling at a point over him. I’ll be back. She turns to go, the soles of her white sneakers squeaking.
And nurse?
Yes? Sighing.
Can you—when they…brought me in—did I…have anything?
You want your personal effects?
Yeah—I—
I’ll be back.
Tim waits. He has to fight off the urge to close his eyes and drift into sleep. Stay awake. No sleeping. Not here. Zombieland. You snooze you lose. He turns again to ponder the withered golem with yellow crust in the curves and cracks of her shrunken lips. Her breathing comes in a series of sporadic fits and starts. She twitches, arms and legs twisted and gnarled like old tree branches. Then her chest trembles still. Tim stops breathing too. Waits. Waits. Finally she inhales with a weak sigh. Tim exhales, slumps back against the bed.
Then he does close his eyes. Just for a minute. While I’m waiting. What is he waiting for? He’s waiting for the nurse, for the old crone in the next bed over to die and hover over him, invite him to join her as she floats on up to that perfect patch of grass in the sky. Why not? Where else do you have to go? No. That’s not what he wants. He wants something else.
He has to—
He needs to—
—Carly.
The nurse returns with a plastic shopping bag and a small plastic cup.
She hands the little cup to Tim, saying, Here, the doctor says to take these.
Two green pills. Tim doesn’t ask what they are. He swallows them with water, but even so, feels them sticking to the inside of his dry throat.
Thanks, he says, not sure if he’s being sarcastic or not. The nurse nods. She stands at the foot of his bed swinging the bag.
Is that my—?
This is everything you were brought in with, she says, frowning at him as if daring him to contradict her.
Okay, Tim says.
He reaches out for it.
The nurse drops the crumpled plastic bag on his bony chest.
Thanks.
She stands there, looking down at him.
Thanks, Tim says again.
Nurse spins on her heels, rubber squeaking as she leaves. Tim feels the bag light on his ribs. He dumps the contents out on his lap. He smells his clothes right away. Rough dirty fabrics reeking of mud and blood and smoke. He can practically taste it. The forest river crevice.
Tim pulls the cargo pants up to his face. One leg torn and bloodied. He slips a hand into a pocket. Nothing. And the other. Empty. Tim does the same for the back pockets. First one: empty. Second one: Hello, what’s this? He pulls out a single thin bent joint. Well then. How’s that for luck, Carly?
He puts the joint on the tray next to his bed. He rifles the hip side pockets. He feels a hard rectangle. Pulls it out. Perfect. Just perfect. Che Guevara ready to light what there is to be lit. And? He pats the pockets again. In case he missed something. No. That’s it.
He drops the pants over the side. Next up is his shirt. Bloodied, cut in half. It’s a total write off. Tim dangles it over the rail, lets it fall from his fingertips. His old life. So. What’s left? Everything you were brought in with. His hands move through the folds where the sheet meets the hospital gown. He comes up with a soft brown tattered leather wallet. He digs a finger into the fold of the big pocket. Please please please. Finger slides along the interior.
Nothing. Ripped lining. No cash at all. ID gone too. No wonder they don’t who he is.
But, Tim wonders, where’s the car? Fuck! The car! He’ll buy her—them—a new car. He just needs—
that tea tin—
full of—
Indian doctor—
cash.
Think. Fucking hell man! Think.
He was driving away, away from—
singed neurons, smoky receptors.
He doesn’t have a clue.
Wississauga.
Tim falls back on the bed. If he’s going to make a move, the time is now. His pain has receded to a cloud on the horizon. They want him to see some—shrink. They’ll lock him up. He’s crazy. Of course he’s crazy. He sees ghosts. He’s been living in the—
freaking woods.
Carly says there’s no such thing as crazy.
—Carly—
I’m—
He has to get out of here. Now. Right now. Find the car, wherever it is. He doesn’t remember, only: the tea tin roll of cash wedged under the passenger seat. It could still be there. He wrestles the rail down and swings his bare feet on to the cold industrial tiles. The hospital gown tickles his knees. Tim yanks the drip out of his arm. He bends down, grabs his pants and pulls them on. Got everything? Anything? He fumbles around the bed for the joint and the lighter. Light spilling in from the nurses’ station just outside the door. Any second they could come in and—
Don’t think. Act. Escape. Escape from Wississauga.
A few steps and he’s at the golem’s bed. For a moment, he considers pinching her nose, smothering her rubbery mouth with his big rough palm.
He’d be doing her a favour.
Her limbs twitch in faint protest. Her heart monitor beeps, slower then faster.
He’s not a killer. Sorry old lady. You’re on your own.
Tim pulls the plug on the heart monitor. An alarm sounds. Tim slinks across and stands in the corner. That evil-looking nurse rushes in, followed by another. Tim slips out past the empty station, and on into the elevator, which just happens to be waiting for him.
Outside Tim breathes big. The air hurts his ribs, his bruised heart, his stitched-up head. The cool spring night slips up his gown, tickling his gaunt chest. His bare feet grip the sidewalk. His soles, his skin, everything tingling, trembling, hyper-alive. Tim feels the rush of it, adrenal possibility, escape. Yeah, right, how far am I going to get? I don’t even have my boots.
No boots. No cash. No luck, Carly.
He peers into the hospital parking lot. The rows of cars remind him of the trees of the forest gully. They’re a place to disappear into. Tim breathes the taste of metal and exhaust and the faint promise of fresh air. He takes a few tentative tottering steps forward. He wants to run, he wants to spring into the anonymous night of parked cars lining dimly illuminated streets. He teeters forward. The bright hospital lobby lights fade. Tim penetrates the parking lot’s pallor. Grey air pushes through him. The hospital gown flutters around his knees.
Tim digs into his pants and pulls out the joint.
Steadied now, Tim wends through the parking lot, makes for the lone phone booth on the opposite curb. He likes the way his long bare feet slap asphalt. He imagines himself as some kind of suburban mutant primate, man-racoon-skunk-squirrel, as at home trolling the parking lots and backyards and dumpsters as he is in a forest river gully. The hospital gown flutters around him, and Tim thinks of Halloween ghosts in billowing white sheets. Did he ever—yeah, sure, when his mother was—when they were still a—
He looks down. He can’t see his feet. He’s floating now. It’s a strange familiar high he’s on, a nice combo, one last twist of the China pot and whatever pain pills the nurse kindly provided.
Tim stabs zero with a still-jagged nail and waits for the machine-operator.
For what city, please?
Collect call from—
Will you accept the—
Carly? Carly? Carly! It’s—
Will you accept a call from—
Then her voice: Yes. Okay. I’ll take the call.
These charges have been accepted. You may proceed now. Thank you for choosing—
Carly!
Tim?
Carly!
Yes. Yes, it’s me. Where are you, Tim?
I—ah—just got out of the hospital.
The hospital? Are you okay? What happened?
I’m okay. I’m—
What hospital?
Huh?
What hospital were you in?
Wississauga General.
Wississauga?
Yeah—I—I was looking for my—
Tim hears noises behind him. Figures stomping through the parking lot, shouting to each other. He wants to say he’s sorry. He wants to say she was right all along, always has been. He presses the phone hard against his face, feels the stitches in his scalp bulge.
Listen, Carly, I’m in a—his voice cool, easy. I’ll tell ya all about it later but I’m in a bit of a—I got in an—ah—our—car. But it’s cool, there’s—I mean, I can—only I need…could you, maybe, uh, come and get me?
Tim. Carly’s voice in the night through the phone and across buildings and houses and schools and malls and empty lots and highways and factories and boulevards and discount outlets and box stores and backyards and small patches of forest adorned with sluggish rivers, dry ponds, and oily swamps. Tim. Are you high?
No…I’m, hey, I’m—
How could you just leave? I didn’t know where you were! What was I supposed to do? You just disappear? You just take off? Jesus, Tim. You stole my car? You stole my car! And there’s people looking for you. That creepy Clay guy came by. Are you dealing for him now? And a lawyer called. Some woman. Your father died, Tim. Do you even know that? Fuck, Tim! I can’t do this anymore. Do you get that? Don’t call me! Don’t call me ever again.
He stands, listening to the long-distance hum of empty space. He feels the cold plastic pressed against his ear. Behind him: shouts and footsteps, getting louder. Tim holds the phone to his ear just a little longer. Then he drops the receiver. Eyes closed, there’s only the permeable darkness, the streaks of light on the insides of his head. He feels himself floating. Away, or back, it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t fight it. He falls into it.