Chapter 5 Mickey #2
“There’s something else,” Tex says. “The doctors want to transfer you to a hospital in Tallahassee. They’ve got a spinal injury unit. Better equipment, better people. They want to move you in the morning once you’re stable.”
“By helicopter?” I ask.
“No, you’ll go by ground transport.”
Tallahassee. Two hours from home. Two hours from my mother who can’t come to a hospital fifteen minutes away.
“Mickey,” Tex says. “Stop spiraling. It’ll be okay. Your Mom can handle this. I’ll look after Mama Weaver and Walter for you.”
“She can’t come, Tex. If I’m in Tallahassee, she can’t come.”
He’s quiet. He knows my mom’s situation as well as I do. Twenty years of friendship means you take care of each other’s family like your own.
“We’ll figure it out,” he says.
“Dad needs her. She can’t leave him.”
“We’ll figure it out. Sheila knows people. Your mom’s church has that group, the caregivers’ circle or whatever it’s called. We’ll find somebody who can sit with your dad long enough for her to come see you.”
“Dad doesn’t do well with strangers. You know that.”
“I know. We’ll figure it out.”
He says it a third time because Tex believes that saying a thing enough times with enough certainty makes it true.
And sometimes he’s right. He said “the bar will hold through the hurricane” and it held through twice.
He said “Stormy’s staying” and Stormy stayed.
But this isn’t a hurricane and it isn’t a terrified guy on the side of the road.
This is my mother trapped in a house with a man who doesn’t know her name half the time, and me trapped in a hospital two hours away, and no amount of Tex saying “we’ll figure it out” changes the map.
“You need to stop doing what you’re doing right now,” Tex says. “Which is figuring out how to take care of everyone else from a hospital bed. Stop. For once in your life, let someone else carry it.”
“Who, Tex? You’ve got the bar. Sheila’s got the bar. Stormy needs you. Mom can’t leave Dad. Who exactly is carrying this?”
“Me, that’s who.” He says it with no room for argument.
“I’m carrying it. I’m driving behind the ambulance to Tallahassee when they take you.
I’m calling your mom and keeping her calm.
I’m calling the sheriff’s department with updates.
I’m handling the insurance and the doctors and whatever else comes.
Sheila and Stormy have the bar. Your mom will come when we figure out how to make it possible.
And you’re going to lie in this bed and let the drugs do their job and stop trying to be in charge of a situation that you are physically unable to be in charge of.
You understand? I’m your brother in every way except by blood. You’re my family and I’ve got this.”
I want to argue because arguing is what I do when I’m losing control, which is a thing I’ve never said out loud. But the drugs are pulling me down and Tex’s hand is still on my arm and the fear is getting closer. I don’t have the energy to fight both the fear and my best friend.
“What if I can’t...” I start.
“Don’t say it, Mickey. Don’t go there.”
“If I can’t walk...”
“Mickey. Don’t.”
“I need to say it.”
“You don’t need to say anything tonight. You need to sleep. In the morning or the next day, we go to Tallahassee and we find out what we’re dealing with and we deal with it. That’s it. That’s as far ahead as we’re going right now. One day at a time. Don’t get ahead of things.”
I know he’s right. The part of me that runs scenarios for a living, that plans three moves ahead, that needs to know the outcome before the outcome happens, that part is screaming right now.
I’m a cop. Cops walk. Cops run. Cops chase people and kick down doors and stand on their feet for twelve-hour shifts.
I’ve been Officer Weaver since I was twenty-three years old and before that I was a kid who wanted to be Officer Weaver. I don’t know who the hell I am without the badge.
The fog is thinning and the fear is getting closer. The IV is still dripping but the drugs are losing ground against what’s rising in my chest.
“Tex.”
He looks at me with bloodshot eyes.
“I’m scared,” I say.
The hardest two words I’ve ever said. Harder than coming out at seventeen.
Harder than telling my mom about Dad’s diagnosis.
Because Officer Weaver never says he’s scared.
Officer Weaver is the one people call when they’re scared.
He’s the calm person, the one who shows up so other people don’t have to be afraid.
Tex doesn’t say “don’t be scared” or “it’ll be okay.” Tex has never lied to me and he’s not going to start now.
Instead, he moves his massive hand from my arm to the back of my head above the collar they’ve strapped on me. He does it how he’s always done it, the way he’d grab me during a football game, pull me close and say one thing in my ear that would carry us through to another victory.
Tex holds the back of my head and he doesn’t say a word. For the first time since seventh grade, the man who never stops talking goes silent. And his silence says more than all his words ever have.
I’m scared too. But I’m not leaving.
He holds on tight. His palm is warm and his grip is keeping my head above water.
I can’t keep my eyes open. Soon they’re taking me to Tallahassee where I’ll begin the process of finding out whether I’ll walk again.
But that’s another day.
Right now, there’s Tex’s hand on my head and the drugs pulling me down.
The room is getting soft at the edges. I hear Tex’s voice.
Not the words. The words are already too far away, dissolving before they reach me, but the sound of his deep, strong voice is still there, the low steady rumble that has been background noise in my life forever.
There have been countless times in my life when I wanted to grab Tex with both hands, shake him hard and say, “For the love of God! Tex! Please stop talking for five minutes!” I never did that because Tex’s non-stop talking is as much a part of him as his beard.
Tonight, I’ve never been so grateful for his never-ending words.
Every time I jerk awake, the first conscious thought is not the pain or the fear.
It’s the comforting sound of his voice. He keeps talking to me throughout the night.
Telling me long-winded stories without a point, one after the other.
He tells me about the first and last time his dad took him fishing.
He tells me about everything we ever did as kids and all the things we’re still going to do.
I know Tex well enough to know he’s not going to stop talking all night.
He’ll sit in that uncomfortable straight chair rambling on about a bunch of nothing until daylight to keep me calm.
He won’t sleep. He’s going to watch the monitors and count my breaths and be the first face I see when I open my eyes.
Tex shows up and he stays. He doesn’t leave and the people he loves never have to wonder if he’s coming back because he never leaves in the first place.
I keep going in and out of sleep, catching a few random words of his stories now and then. Now he’s rambling on again about jellyfish... Big Bertha... Benji.
In the midst of the brain fog the name of the guy from the hallway is floating around. Did Tex say his name or did I imagine it? Maybe I’m dreaming.
Benji.
A man who looked like he belonged on a runway, not beaten and bleeding on a dirty bar floor.