Chapter 13 Mickey
The next morning, the doctor pulls a chair over beside my bed instead of standing. That’s how I know this isn’t a quick update.
“Okay, Mickey,” she says. “I’m going to talk to you straight.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“As we’ve discussed before, you have an incomplete spinal cord injury,” she says. “That means the cord wasn’t completely severed, which is important. The swelling is still interfering with the signals between your brain and your legs. That’s why you’re not seeing movement yet.”
I nod once while tracking every word.
“The fact that it’s incomplete gives us reason to hope,” she continues.
“We see patients with injuries like this regain function. The fact that you’re stable and the cord wasn’t severed puts you in that category.
But I need you to understand, we don’t know yet how much function is going to come back, or how quickly.
The next phase matters. Rehab is where we start pushing the system, retraining the pathways, and seeing what your body can recover.
” She pauses and holds my eyes. “You’re not at the end of this, Mickey. You’re at the beginning of it.”
“What does that mean?” I ask. “I need to do more rehab here?”
“No. This hospital isn’t set up for intensive spinal rehab. What you need is a dedicated inpatient facility. Multiple hours of therapy a day.”
“So, you’ve done everything you can do here? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“We have. You’re stable. The surgical concerns are addressed. The most important thing now is giving the spinal cord the best environment to recover. That happens in rehab, not here.”
“Where do I go?”
“The top program in the state is a rehabilitation hospital in Jacksonville. That’s our first recommendation if a bed is available. If not, there’s another one in Pensacola. And there are national programs like the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, but that’s farther and depends on availability.”
Jacksonville is four and a half hours on I-10 from Panama City. Pensacola is three hours west. Atlanta is six. Doesn’t matter which one. Either way, nobody’s just dropping in to visit.
“Which one gives me the better shot to get better?” I ask.
“Jacksonville. Without hesitation. They have a dedicated spinal cord injury program. More experience and more resources than anyone else in the state.”
“How long?”
“Six to eight weeks. Sometimes longer. Depends on how you progress.”
“And if nothing comes back?”
“Then we keep working. Rehab isn’t just about walking. It’s about independence. Learning how to function with whatever your body gives you, and pushing it to give you more.”
“When do I move?”
“Likely within the next couple of days,” she says. “As soon as we secure placement.”
“This is the next step then.”
“Yes, and it’s the best one.” She stands, squeezes my shoulder, puts the chair back and walks out. The door clicks shut and I’m alone with the knowledge that they’re done with me here. The next stop is Jacksonville, four and a half hours from everyone who matters.
I don’t have time to think about it before the door suddenly slams open and Tex barges in. He’s carrying a Styrofoam container in one hand and a thermos in the other. He drove two hours at six in the morning on a mission and the mission involves food.
God, how I’ve missed my best friend.
He’s wearing a Big Tex’s Roadhouse T-shirt that’s seen better days and jeans with a barbecue sauce stain on the left thigh that I suspect is permanent.
His beard has gotten longer since the last time I saw him, and it’s doing a thing on the left side that suggests he slept on it wrong and didn’t check a mirror before leaving.
He looks like he woke up in the middle of the night, loaded food into a truck, and drove two hours without once considering his appearance.
He’s a giant disaster in a stained T-shirt delivering breakfast.
“Good morning, sunshine,” he says.
“Damn, am I glad to see you, Tex.”
“I bet you are. I brought food. Real food, not eggs from a carton that you’ve been bitching about.”
He pops the container open and the smell of a full Southern breakfast hits me. Biscuits, sausage gravy, scrambled eggs, pancakes, two fat sausage links. Steam curls off the gravy in the fluorescent light.
“I stopped at Dottie’s,” he says. “Dottie herself was behind the counter. She asked where I was headed that early in the morning with enough food for a family of four and I told her my best friend was in the hospital in Tallahassee. She added two extra biscuits and wouldn’t let me pay for them.
I tried to pay. She threatened me with a spatula.
You don’t argue with a woman holding a spatula.
That’s a losing fight. The spatula always wins. The coffee’s from my pot.”
He hands me the thermos cap full of coffee.
The smell of Tex’s coffee, rich and dark, hits me.
I take a sip, close my eyes and for three seconds I’m standing in Tex’s kitchen at five in the morning before a shift.
The memory brings tears to my eyes before I can blink them away. Seeing Tex makes me so damn homesick.
“I also brought you a gallon of sweet tea that I’ll get later from the truck.
I know what you’re going to say. ‘Tex, I can’t drink a gallon of sweet tea,’ and I’m going to say ‘of course you can, you’re in a hospital, all rules are suspended, sweet tea is medicinal.
’ The sugar content alone will cure you.
I’m not a doctor but I’m willing to make that claim without evidence. ”
“I didn’t know you were coming this morning,” I say.
“Surprises are my specialty,” Tex says. “Now eat your biscuits. I microwaved the gravy in the waiting room. Oh, and Sheila says hello. Actually, Sheila says, and I’m quoting directly, ‘Tell my baby I love him and miss him so bad.’”
“She also sent you this.” He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a folded piece of paper.
“It’s a note. She wrote it on a napkin at the bar because Sheila doesn’t believe in stationery.
She says stationery is for people who don’t have napkins.
I haven’t read it because she told me if I read it, she’d know, and I believe her.
I’ve always been convinced she has psychic abilities.
She knows things before they happen, but I can’t prove it because every time I bring it up, she gives me the look and it makes me forget what I was going to say. I’ll never be able to prove it.”
“How’s she doing at the bar?”
“Running the show like she owns the place. My name is on the sign and the liquor license, but Sheila runs that building the way a general runs a base. I’m nothing but a figurehead.
I’m the Queen of England of Big Tex’s Roadhouse.
I wear the crown and wave from the balcony and Sheila makes every actual decision.
Last Tuesday I moved a stack of napkins from one end of the bar to the other, and she moved them back before I’d finished my coffee.
Yesterday I suggested moving a few liquor shelves to make room for Stormy’s new dessert display.
She looked at me over those reading glasses and said, ‘Tex, when you die, I’m going to reorganize this entire building and nobody will be able to stop me.
’ Then she poured a draft beer for herself and walked away. Conversation over.”
I’m eating and laughing. Tex is here and for now the world is just biscuits and my best friend.
“The doctor came by this morning,” I say between bites.
“What did she say? Any updates?”
“Yeah, they’re done with me here and are kicking my ass out as soon as possible. I need rehab at a dedicated facility. She recommended a place in Jacksonville.”
“Jacksonville.” Tex says. “What’s that drive from Panama City? About four and a half hours?”
“Yeah, that’s about what I figured.”
“That’s a significant distance,” he says.
“That’s a distance that requires gas station snacks and a bathroom strategy.
But it’s also a closer distance than I drove to pick up bar supplies I bought in an auction in New Orleans.
I did that with a borrowed flatbed and no air conditioning in August. If I can drive four and a half hours for bar glasses and stools, I can sure as hell drive four and a half hours for you.
The stools don’t even talk to me. You at least carry a conversation.
Sometimes. When you’re not being difficult.
You’ll go to Jacksonville if that’s the best place.
We’ll figure out the visiting. Sheila and Stormy can hold the bar down. I’ll come over. We’ll make it work.”
“No, Tex. You can’t be driving that far. It’s a two-day trip.”
“Here’s what I’m thinking. I drive over on a Monday.
Monday’s our slow day. The bar’s dead on Mondays.
A funeral home has more energy than my bar on a Monday.
Sheila and Stormy can handle it. I bring you food, I sit in the chair, I talk until you fall asleep or tell me to shut up, whichever comes first.”
I shake my head at him. “No, you’re not coming all the way to Jacksonville. It’s too far for a day trip and you can’t leave Stormy overnight. You’d be a nervous wreck thinking he was alone there at the bar at night. I won’t let you do that.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
“No, we won’t. Cut it out. I’m serious. I’m a big boy. I can handle it. They’ll work me so hard, I won’t have time to hang out anyway.”
“We’ll discuss it more when you get there. Have you heard anything about the case?”
“I talked to Morrison on the phone yesterday. The detective handling the case.”
Tex sets his coffee down. “And?”
“The kid with the gun, Trey Daniels, his lawyer tried to get the charge reduced. Said it was accidental discharge, that the gun went off inside the pocket and he never intended to fire it.”
“Bullshit.”