George Martin - Jokertown Shuffle

Jerry opened the door and stepped into the brightly lit hallway. He motioned to Beth, who wheeled the gurney out next to him. They headed slowly toward the elevator. Jerry marked something unreadable on his clipboard and hoped he looked the part. The elevator was empty, and they both sighed as the doors closed.

"So far, so good," Jerry said. His back and armpits were soaked in sweat.

"Mm," Beth said. It was more a growl than anything else. The car stopped in several jerky motions, and they moved out into the basement. Jerry could hear someone in Emergency moaning. There were several patients sitting in the hall. One, a bloody hand held to the side of his head, was talking to a police officer. Jerry didn't breathe as they moved past. The cop didn't bother to look up.

"Dr. Scaly?" The female voice came from behind him. Jerry's shoulders tightened. He turned around slowly. A nurse with sharp eyes and features was looking at him hard. "Yes," he said.

"Is that patient being transferred out?" The nurse looked at Veronica.

"Yes. Why else would she be down here?" Jerry hoped his sarcasm would back her off.

The nurse made a face. "Then I assume you have some paperwork for me?"

Jerry nodded stiffly. "Of course. Once she's situated in the ambulance, I'll be back to take care of you."

"If you don't," the nurse said, "I know where to find you."

"I hope not," he whispered, turning away. He looked over at Beth. Her skin was a couple of shades paler than usual. They quickly rolled Veronica out to the nearest ambulance and opened up the rear.

"Everything you'll need?" he asked, looking inside. Beth nodded. They lifted Veronica in, and Beth climbed up after her. Jerry closed the doors and walked around the far side, pulling off his smock. He had his EMS outfit on underneath.

He made his face rounder and changed his hair from gray to brown. Jerry got into the driver's side and tossed the smock onto the floorboard. He softened his fingertip and slid it into the ignition slot. When he felt it fit, he hardened his finger and turned. The engine caught immediately, an echoing roar in the concrete underground. A few blocks away he could stop and hot-wire the ignition, until then he'd have to make do with one hand.

"Shit," Beth said from behind him. "What?"

"Her heart's stopped." Beth took a deep breath and prepared an injection. "I'll try some adrenaline. Get us the hell out of here. I don't want to get caught now. Move it."

Jerry put the ambulance into gear and drove slowly through the Emergency parking area to the street.

"Is she going to be all right?" he asked.

"I can't tell yet." Beth's voice was shaky. Her face was covered in sweat. "I've got a pulse, but it's erratic. Could go either way."

Jerry drove one-handed for as long as he could stand it. There was no way he could make it through three boroughs to reach the family home in Staten Island that way. He stopped, softened his fingertip, and tugged it, bleeding and swollen, from the ignition. He pulled a knife and electrical tape from one pocket and bent under the dash. "We'll be moving again in a minute," he said.

Beth sighed. "I can't believe I volunteered for this. If we get caught, I'm going to strangle you with my bare hands." Jerry brought the wires together with a tiny blue spark. The engine kicked to life. "I love you, too."

After taking Beth and Veronica home, Jerry drove the ambulance into Queens and abandoned it. He caught a cab back from there. It gave him a twinge of glee that Veronica had wound up in his projection room. She'd never have come there when they were dating. You were paying her to fuck you, he thought. It wasn't a date.

Beth was looking Veronica over when he walked in. "This isn't good, bro. They didn't use a gel-foam cushion under her while she was there."

It bothered him a little that she called him "bro," although he wasn't sure why. Jerry knew what a gel-foam cushion was only because it was a squishy bed covering he'd figured might have real erotic possibilities. "What's the problem?"

"She's got some ugly lesions on her bottom, and a couple are starting on her shoulders, too. They weren't looking after her well at all." Beth squeezed some antiseptic cream on a gloved hand and applied it carefully to Veronica's flesh. "'Lesions'?"

"Bedsores." Beth pulled off her gloves and tossed them into a trash can. "If she doesn't come around soon, we're going to have major complications."

Jerry snorted. "Over bedsores?"

"That's right. If they get bad enough, you have to do skin grafts to prevent life-threatening infections. That requires a plastic surgeon and anesthesiologist at the very least, assuming I can grow a few more limbs to take care of everything else." She walked past him and patted him on the shoulder. "Trust me."

"Shit," Jerry said, turning and following her out of the room. "How do you get somebody out of a coma?"

"You don't, really," Beth said, putting her arms around him. "I guess we'd better get some rest."

"Rest?"

"I'm afraid so," she said. "We'll need our energy to devote to Veronica." She kissed the end of his nose. "This is another reason I stopped being a nurse."

"You're so good," he said. "I don't know what I did to deserve you."

Beth laughed. "For his next trick, Jerry will put all of his self-esteem into a thimble."

Jerry slapped her ass. "Enough. Let's get some sleep."

"Veronica, I love you. You have to come back for me." Jerry stroked her hand, carefully avoiding the area where her I. V was attached. Saying he loved her was a lie, but he wasn't going to crucify himself for it at this point. "Hannah needs you. We all do." Veronica's chest rose and fell slowly. Her eyelids might as well have been carved in stone.

Beth walked into the room with two plates of food. "Fettuccine for two." She set the plates on the coffee table in front of the couch. "So much for the question `But can she cook?' Good men have plotzed for my Italian food since the dawn of time."

Jerry stood and stretched. He was glad Beth hadn't heard him telling Veronica he loved her. It would be too much trouble to explain right now. He walked on stiff legs over to the couch and sat down in front of the plate with the largest helping. It was weird having so much normal furniture in the room with a coma patient. "What time is it?"

"A little after seven." Beth took Jerry's seat next to Veronica and began bathing her with a fresh washcloth. Jerry fumbled for the TV remote control and punched the set to life. "Hot damn. I don't think I've missed much of it. Chrissie is probably dead, though."

"What are you talking about?"

"Jaws." Jerry rubbed his hands together. On the screen, Brody was looking down at the girl's crab-infested remains. Beth wiped Veronica's forehead. Her touch was light but firm. Like she'd been with him in bed a few nights before. "I thought jaws scared you to death."

"Several times." Jerry paused and glazed-over his eyes. "Very first light, chief, sharks come cruising."

"Enough," Beth said. "It's obviously going to be a long night."

Jerry nodded. "For all the wrong reasons."

He turned back to the TV It was a commercial break, and a fast-talking salesman had a penlike device at the end of an egg. "Wow. Look at that. You can scramble an egg without even breaking it open."

Beth laughed. "I forget how much you missed in your twenty years as a giant ape. You're Ronco's dream customer."

"It's nice to be somebody's dream something." Jerry bit his lip. He'd been trying to cut down on self-pity, but he had a genuine talent for it.

"God, I'm sick of hearing that kind of shit. If we're going to have a chance, that kind of talk has to start disappearing." She turned away from him. "Even now, you can't believe that I love you."

Jerry rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I'm afraid to. I'm crazy about you, always have been. You make me deliriously happy. I'm not a bad guy, but I just can't imagine you'd ever settle for someone like me. I feel so… insubstantial or inadequate or something."