Chapter 74
After Ruby took his arm and his hand, Clint went to the ICU with a deadly infection. Anytime I remember what Arachnodesiac did to me, I'm grateful that at least I didn't have my limbs torn off by a living dinosaur.
I skirt by a nurse wheeling an old woman covered with a blanket. I stop outside Clint's room and see him watching TV, both his arms wrapped up like a mummy. Queenie, the nurse who took care of me, is at his bedside trying to get a spoonful of vegetables into his mouth, but he spits it all out.
“We gotta get you healthy, sir,” she says robotically.
“I am healthy!” he shouts at her. “I'm on a steady diet of highly refined barbecue and sex. Neither of which you know anything about, from the looks of it.”
Queenie dumps the bowl of vegetables on his tray and heads for the door. “Diet of highly refined barbecue. Lord have mercy, hemorrhoids gonna tear that ass apart,” she says to herself, then notices me. “Hi, baby!” She taps me on the shoulder before disappearing into her office.
When he sees me at the door, he shifts his nervous gaze back to the TV. I sit next to him.
“Nurse! Come back!” he calls, then orders me to get out.
“Not before we get some closure.”
“I wasn't trying to hurt you, okay?”
“We don't have to talk about that,” I say.
“Then what the hell kind of closure do you want?”
“I sold a bunch of your guns to a collector and got some money. Maybe it'll help you with your hospital bills. God knows I've been there,” I say, setting an envelope full of cash next to him, but he's unmoved.
“Where's Dinah?” he asks.
“She lost all of our money—again—and she's in Russia now,” I say. “But it sounds like she's in her happy place. I wouldn't expect to see her back in the US anytime soon.”
“Did she ask about me?”
I don't respond. The answer should be obvious. The disappointment in his eyes is clear.
“Guess I'll be on disability for the rest of my life now. Like a loser. A leech. I always thought I was gonna do something big someday.”
I don't think Clint is new to the leech lifestyle, but I won't bother to remind him. “Why is that so important to you?”
“Because, Wade, I want to matter,” he hisses. “I don't want to be dead and forgotten in a toilet here in Oyster Pit. Not like my dad.”
I understand. Deep down, that is what I felt, too, for a long time. And in the end, you realize it's all an illusion. Everybody wants to matter, wants a dumb legacy—all for the wrong reasons. And the rest of the world suffers for it.
“Doing something big and becoming a capital G. M. Great Man by scamming people was the only way for you to matter?”
He looks away from me, out at the window that gleams with sunshine.
He stretches his neck to take a sip of his juice, but he can't get his mouth on the straw.
I cross over to the bed tray and move the juice box closer to his mouth.
He swipes the box off with his bandaged, handless arm.
Liquid explodes everywhere as the box crashes into the wall.
“I loved y'all. Didn't you know that? I had so much wisdom to give you. And you fucked me over and ruined my life.”
“That's not true,” I say. “You didn't have much of a life to begin with.
Maybe you should reflect on what your life could be.
In fact, your current condition will give you enough time to think about that.
That's why it would do you some good to have somebody to talk to.
I know the perfect person. I'm sure you'll recognize her.”
The shadow of Rosferatu looms in the hall, and she appears at the door, holding a collection of hardcover books.
I smile. “It's your old babysitter, Mrs. Wetherly!”
“No. Please no,” Clint whimpers, sinking into his pillow, unable to hide his face.
“Hello again, Clinton,” she says. “I've been looking forward to seeing you again. I was sorry to hear about both of your arms.”
He looks at me desperately. “Kill me.”
“She'll be your new sponsor for the twelve-step program,” I say.
“Wade. Please.”
“Now that she's retired from teaching, she's excited to spend all her time with you. She really must be the woman you need. Pecos, Clint!”
I leave him there, shaking and crying, as Mrs. Wetherly takes the seat beside him.
“I haven't forgotten how much you enjoy a good book,” she says, setting her books down and picking up a copy of Anne of Green Gables. Clint closes his eyes and turns his head, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths.
“I've got all eight books from the series,” Rosferatu declares.
“Why don't you stick 'em all up your ass and get out of my life?”
“Now, now, Clinton. Don't put a question mark where God has put a period.”