Steve Hamilton - Ice Run

I got out of bed on the second day and made it to the bathroom before throwing up in the sink. By the end of that day I could sit up in the bed and turn my head without making the room spin. I slept a few hours that night.

On the third day, Dr. Glenn came through on the morning rounds and gave me three random words to remember. Then he went through all his tests. When he was done, he asked me to repeat the words back to him.

“What words?” I said.

He looked at me.

“Table, bicycle, chair,” I said.

“Congratulations. You get to go home and rest for the next seven days. Then you need to come back for another checkup, and to have your stitches taken out. If you start to feel worse, you need to call me right away.” He gave me his card.

“Thanks, doc.”

“You lead an interesting life,” he said. “I’ll give you that.”

Vinnie showed up not long after that to take me home. I put my clothes on. Then they stuck me in a wheelchair and rolled me out of the place.

“To the ice arena,” I said. “I feel like playing hockey.” The sun was out, glittering all over the white snow and making my head hurt enough to die right there in the parking lot.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you home.”

“Take me to my truck.”

“No way.”

“Vinnie, just take me to my truck, all right? I can drive it home.”

“It’s not gonna happen,” he said. Then I saw his cousin Buck pull up in his beat-up old Plymouth Fury.

“You gotta be kidding me,” I said. “I’m getting a ride home in this?”

“No, just to your truck,” Vinnie said. “Then I’ll drive you home.”

Vinnie climbed into the backseat and gave me the front. Buck looked me over a couple of times and gave a low whistle. “Man, you got run over,” he said. He pulled out and drove down the street toward the church.

“You ever get your license back?” I asked him.

He shrugged that one off. He was a big, round man, with dark hair falling halfway down his back.

“It’s one thing to drive around the rez,” I said. “They catch you in the Soo, it’s gonna be a different story.”

“Alex, give him a break,” Vinnie said from the backseat. “He’s doing you a favor.”

“I know that, Vinnie. I just don’t want the man to go to jail over it.”

“All that working over you got,” Buck said, “and they didn’t bust up your mouth? You’re still talking too much.”

“Right here at the church,” Vinnie said. “His truck’s on the side there.”

Buck pulled into the parking lot and stopped next to my truck. It was covered by six inches of new snow, and circled by more snow on the ground where the snowplow had worked around it. I let Vinnie and Buck clean it off for me while I walked just far enough to see around to the back of the building. There was no trace of what had happened here in this one patch of ground next to the red brick wall. The snow had covered up everything.

“Alex, what are you doing?” Vinnie had started up my truck and was scraping the last of the ice from the side window. “Let’s get you home.”

I thanked Buck for bringing Vinnie over, suspended license and all. He surprised me by grabbing me by the shoulders and hugging me. “Take care of yourself,” he said. “You’ve got too much trouble in your life. Vinnie can’t watch over you all the time, you know.”

I wasn’t about to argue with that one. I thanked him again and watched him rumble off in his old Plymouth. Then I got in the passenger’s seat of my own truck. It felt strange not to be driving. But I figured what the hell. I closed my eyes and waited for Vinnie to pull out of the parking lot.

It didn’t happen. I opened my eyes and saw him looking at me.

“What?” I said.

“You gotta promise me something.”

“What is it?”

“You don’t go after them alone.”

“Who?”

“You know who I’m talking about.”

“How stupid do you think I am?”

“Alex…”

“Vinnie, look at me. Your mother could kick my ass right now.”

He shook his head and smiled. “On another day, when you’re better

… promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Vinnie. Right now, I can’t even think about it. But later…”

Later what? Maven was going to arrest them. At this point, that had probably already been done. Was that enough?

Or would I still want to settle things myself? When I was strong again, would I want to go find them, one by one? I knew their names. I knew their faces. I could find out where they lived.

“I’ll promise you this,” I finally said. “If that day comes, I won’t go alone.”

He put the truck in gear. “You’re damned right you won’t.”

As he drove, I kept my eyes closed and listened to the wind whistling past my window. I dozed off for a while. When I woke up, we were just hitting Paradise. He drove through the blinking light, past the Glasgow Inn, then down the access road.

“Looks like somebody plowed while I was in the hospital.”

“My other cousin, Henry. He’s got a plow on his truck now.”

“I guess I owe all of you,” I said.

“It’s nothing.” He pulled into my driveway and stopped the truck.

“Especially you,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Do you have your pills?”

I rattled the bottle in my coat pocket. “Right here.”

“You’re gonna take them?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Alex, it’s okay to take painkillers when you’re in pain.”

“I know that,” I said. “How come you’re so inside my head today?”

“Because I’m your blood brother, remember? I feel what you feel.”

“Get out of here, Vinnie. I don’t need you to-”

“Alex, damn it. Do I have to take those pills from you? I’ll take them and come over and make you swallow one every four hours, I swear.”

Once again, he knew me too well. He knew that there had been a time, back in Detroit, after my partner had been shot, and I had taken those three bullets myself… The pain in my shoulder, where they had tried to put my rotator cuff back together, not to mention the thought of another bullet left inside me, right next to my heart.

Worst of all, the sight of Franklin lying on the floor next to me, the life fading from his eyes as I looked into them. Those long nights when I couldn’t sleep. Those dark hours all by myself. That’s how it started.

“You know as long as you’re in pain,” Vinnie said, “you can’t get addicted to painkillers.”

“Yeah, that’s what they say.”

“Alex-”

“I’ll take them,” I said. “Okay? I’ll take them as long as I need to, and not one day longer.” I opened the door and got out of the truck. He did the same.

“I’ll come by later to see how you’re doing,” he said.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Says you.”

I thanked him again. He walked away, down the access road toward his cabin. It was a good day for a walk if you had the strength for it.

When I went inside, there were five messages on my machine. Three were from downstaters wanting to make reservations, one was from Leon, a few days back, wanting to know where the hell I was. And one was from Natalie. Just calling to say hello. Wondering how I was doing.

“If you only knew,” I said. I didn’t call her back yet. I couldn’t deal with it. Not yet.

My bruises had reached their full-color peak, and as I stood in the bathroom looking in the mirror, I thought to myself, Maven was right. I should sell tickets. The skin around both of my eyes was black now, and my eyes were both streaked bloodred. There was tape above my left eyebrow, and tape on the back of my head, where they had shaved the hair. The same hair I had dyed, standing right here just a matter of days ago, thinking that I could knock off a few years by hiding some of the gray. God, what a fool I was.