Part Three. Eggshell White, Flat Latex

Chapter 36

Hello, Francis."

I squinted at the sound of a familiar voice. "Hello, Peter," I replied. "Where am I?"

"Back in the hospital," he responded, grinning, his old devil-may-care flash in his eyes. I must have looked alarmed, because he held up his hand. "Not our hospital, of course. That one is gone forever. A new one. Quite a bit nicer than the old Western State. Take a look around, C-Bird. I think you'll see that the accommodations this time around are significantly improved."

I slowly pivoted my head first to the right, then the left. I was lying on a firm bed, and I could feel crisp, clean sheets beneath my skin. An intravenous tube dripped some concoction into a needle stuck into the flesh of my arm, and I was dressed in a pale green hospital Johnny. On the wall opposite my bed there was a large and colorful painting of a white sailboat being driven by a stiff breeze across some sparkling bay waters on a fine summer's day. A silent television set was hung by a bracket from the wall. And my momentary survey discovered that my room had a window, which gave me a small, but welcome view of an eggshell blue sky with a few wispy high clouds, which seemed to me to be curiously like the afternoon in the painting, repeated.

"See?" Peter said with a small wave. "Not bad at all."

"No," I admitted. "Not bad."

I looked over at the Fireman. He was perched on the edge of the bed, near my feet. I looked him up and down. He was different from the last time

I'd seen him in my apartment, when flesh had hung from his bones, blood had streaked his face, and dirt had marred his smile. Now he was wearing the blue jumpsuit that I recalled from the very first day we'd met, outside of Gulptilil's office, and he had the same Boston Red Sox cap pushed back on his head.

"Am I dead?" I asked him.

He shook his head, a small smile flitting across his face.

"No," he said. "You're not. I am."

I could feel a wave of grief rising up within my chest, stifling the words I wanted to speak in my throat. "I know," I said. "I remember."

Peter grinned again. "Wasn't the Angel, you know. Did I ever get a chance to thank you, C-Bird? He would have killed me for certain down there if not for you. And I would have died if you hadn't pulled me across that basement floor and got the Moses brothers to get help. You did real well by me, Francis, and I was grateful, even if I never got a chance to tell you."

Peter sighed, and a little sadness crept into his words. "We should have been listening to you all along, but we didn't, and it cost us a great deal. You were the one who knew where to search, and what to look for. But we didn't pay attention, did we?" He shrugged as he spoke.

"Did it hurt?" I asked.

"What? Not listening to you?"

"No." I waved my hand in the air. "You know what I mean."

Peter laughed briefly. "Dying? I thought it would, but if truth be told, not at all. Or, at least, not all that much."

"I saw your picture in the paper a couple of years back when it happened. It was your picture, but the name underneath it was different. It said you were out in Montana. But it was you, wasn't it?"

"Of course. New name. New life. But all the same old problems."

"What happened?"

"It was stupid, really. It wasn't a big fire, and we only had a few crews working it, almost haphazardly; we all thought it was just about under wraps. We'd been digging firebreaks all morning, and I guess we were really only minutes away from declaring it contained and pulling everyone out, when the wind shifted. Shifted hard, and blew up something fierce. I told the crew to run for the ridge, and we could hear the fire right behind us, being blown along. It makes a roaring sound, almost like you're being chased by a huge runaway train. Everybody made it, except me, and I would have made it, too, if one of the guys hadn't fallen, and I went back for him. So, there we were, with only one fire cover between the two of us, so I let him crawl underneath where he had a chance to survive, and I tried to outrun it, even though I knew I couldn't and it caught me a few feet from the ridge. Bad luck, I guess, but it all seemed strangely appropriate, C-Bird. At least the papers called me a hero, but it didn't feel all that heroic. Just pretty much what I'd been expecting, and, I'm guessing, probably what I deserved. Like it was all in balance, finally."

"You could have saved yourself," I said.

He shrugged. "I'd saved myself other times. And been saved, as well, especially by you. And if you hadn't saved me, then I wouldn't have been there to save him, so it all worked out, more or less."

"But I miss you," I said.

Peter the Fireman smiled. "Of course. But you no longer need me. Actually, Francis, you never did. Not even the first day we met, but you couldn't see it, then. Now maybe you can."

I didn't know about that, but I didn't say anything right away, until I recalled why I was in the hospital.

"But what about the Angel? He'll come back."

Peter shook his head, and lowered his voice, as if to give weight to his words. "No, C-Bird. He had his shot back then twenty years ago, and you beat him and then you beat him again after all that time had passed. He's gone for good now. He won't bother you or anyone else again, except in some folks' bad memories, which is where he belongs and where he'll have to stay. It's not perfect, of course, or exactly clean and nice. But that's the way things are. They leave a mark, but we go on. But you'll be free. I promise."

I didn't know if I believed this. "I'll be all alone again," I complained.

Peter laughed out loud. It was a wide, unadorned, unfettered laugh.

"C-Bird, C-Bird, C-Bird," he said, shaking his head back and forth with each word. "You've never been alone."

I reached out to touch him, as if to prove that what he said was true, but Peter the Fireman faded away, disappearing from the edge of the hospital bed, and I slowly slid back into a dreamless, solid sleep.

None of the nurses at this hospital had nicknames, I quickly learned. They were pleasant, efficient, but businesslike. They checked the drip in my arm, and when that was removed, they monitored the medications I was given carefully, charting each one on a clipboard that hung from a slot on the wall by the door. I didn't get the impression that anyone could cheek any medication in this hospital, so I dutifully swallowed whatever they gave me. Every so often, they would speak with me, about this or that, the weather just beyond my window, or perhaps how I had slept the night before. Every question they asked seemed a part of some greater scheme, which was restoring me to some familiar level. For example, they never asked me if I liked the green Jell-O, or the red, or whether I might want some graham crackers and juice before sleep, or if I preferred one television show over another. They wanted to know specifically whether my throat felt dry, I'd had any nausea or diarrhea, or whether I had a quiver in my hands, and most especially, had I heard or seen anything that just might not actually be there.

I didn't tell them about Peter's visit. It wasn't what they would have wanted to hear about, and he didn't return again.

Once each day the resident on the ward came by, and he and I would talk a little about ordinary things. But these weren't really conversations, like one friend might have with another, or even like two strangers meeting for the first time, with pleasantries and greetings. They belonged to a different realm, one where I was being measured, and assessed. The resident was like a tailor seeking to make me a new suit of clothes before I was to be set off in the great wide world, except that these were cuts of cloth that I wore within and not without.